Adapting User Experience Design and Service Design tools to Museums

Many Design tools are often about collaborating to create the best solution for the customer. What professional doesn’t want that? The challenge, however, comes when trying to think out how to use these tools in your workday. These tools and systems can be broken down into many different ways. But, one useful way to consider these tools is to think about learning styles. Most of us work in places that preference textual communication. Textual communication has drawbacks. Not everyone has the same level of verbal competency. Written and spoken language has limitations. For example, certain feelings are hard to verbalize, like think of verbalizing the feelings you get when your favorite food hits your tongue.

Visual Learning:

Sketching and drawing out ideas is a useful way to communicate across individuals. Many people fear drawing, particularly those who feel uncertain about their skills. In collaborative drawing sessions, consider using a scribe who is a terrible, but unashamed sketcher. Invite them to use simple shapes. Remind them this is not art. Sketching is a means to an end. When would you use this? If your team is tasked with planning the customer experience, you can collaborative sketch parts of the experience

Storyboarding is a set of sketches that show a sequence. Many people have played with storyboarding in school when working on creative writing. In the work situation, you are storyboarding a sequence of parts of an experience. The ideal storyboard combines pictures, annotations of those pictures, and text describing the moment. When would you use this? If your team is tasked with planning the best program ever, you can sketch the event from signing up to leaving.

Mapping is a broad category of tools. Journey mapping is a common tool that user experience designers employ to show the steps in using a product. Empathy mapping is used to describe the feelings associated with an experience.  When would you use this? Every museum customer experience would be improved if they mapped the feelings people have from entering the building to leaving.

Kinesthetic Learning:

Card sorting is a feedback tool where people rate topics on cards. Placing the cards in order is a different form of meaning-making than surveying or rating, for example. When would you use this? When your internal team is trying to find consensus about ideas associated with a new space, card sorting can help surface major trends. This is a particularly useful tool in teams with many introverted members.

Prototypes can be high-tech or low. They can be refined or guerilla. However, all prototypes are useful for making ideas seem concrete. Some people can’t really understand an idea until they see it. When would you use this? You are trying to figure out the right types of signs for a new installation. Put up samples and solicit feedback.

Mapping can be considered kinesthetic, in that teams need to walk around to create their maps.

Aural Learning:

All of these tools have an aspect of aural learning. Encourage everyone to talk out the ideas that come up as they use these tools. You will find that many of these ideas would have remained hidden if they hadn’t used the processes.

 

 

 

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