Problem Framing
A museum visit had to fit the lives young adults already lead.
Our project brief asked us to explore why people ages 18–25 were visiting the Art Institute less often and propose a concept that could encourage them to come in person. We began by looking at their routines, motivations, and experiences with museums, alongside the existing app.
Participants described an interest in art, culture, and learning, alongside practical barriers: school and work schedules, ticket cost, travel, and finding someone to go with. Several also wanted a museum visit to give them time away from screens.
That combination shaped our challenge: how could the museum offer a social, flexible experience that felt worth making time for, with digital tools that supported the visit?
Research & Synthesis
Connection, flexibility, and presence shaped the opportunity.
Our team combined contextual and competitive research, a heuristic evaluation of the existing app, a museum site visit, and qualitative interviews. We coded interview material in FigJam, grouped recurring themes, and developed personas and journey maps to connect the findings to design decisions.
The interviews showed different preferences within the audience. People could want to arrive with friends and still explore independently. They could use social media to discover experiences while wanting fewer digital interruptions once they arrived. We used those differences to guide the concept.
What we heard | Design response |
|---|---|
Friends and shared interests could motivate a visit; visitors also valued their own pace. | Support social and solo participation, with room to move between activities. |
School, work, and limited time could make a museum trip difficult to plan. | Propose after-hours programming and clear information for planning a visit. |
Some participants preferred to put their phones away or avoid an unnecessary app. | Make the physical experience meaningful on its own, with optional digital support. |
Participants valued creative expression and experiences connected to their interests. | Explore participatory rooms built around familiar internet culture, music, and media. |
Cost and travel added friction to a visit. | Explore an ongoing shared workspace as another reason to return; pricing and access would still need to be worked out. |
Leading The Concept
Give young adults a place to gather, create, and return.
I led the idea for (DIS)CONNECTED and the shared in-person space at its center. The proposal brought together a participatory exhibit, a permanent workspace, and an event area, giving young adults several ways to spend time at the museum.
The exhibit explored the creative culture of the internet through a media timeline, a music room, a meme-and-reel creation studio, and a room about scrolling, attention, and media awareness. Visitors could recognize familiar material, make something with friends, or explore the ideas behind their online habits.
The permanent shared workspace would give students and young professionals a place to study or work, including private meeting rooms and a small kitchen. A separate event area would support artist talks, workshops, and other social programming after regular museum hours.
The spatial concept connected these activities through a common footprint. The museum map also proposed an outside access route near the workspace and event room, making after-hours access a concrete consideration in the layout. It remained a conceptual plan; access, staffing, and museum operations would need further development.
Proposed room relationships and after-hours access. Concept diagram, not a measured architectural plan.
App Design & Prototyping
A familiar app could connect discovery, planning, and participation.
We kept much of the existing app structure and added screens associated with the new program. I contributed extensively to the design and prototyping, working with the team to connect the physical experience to the interface.
The proposed homepage introduced (DIS)CONNECTED and the shared space. Visitors could explore the exhibit, browse events, register, reserve a workspace, and access saved information. An Experience area brought together optional creation, scanning, listening, and community features.
We organized the concept around the visit journey so each feature had a purpose before, during, or after someone came to the museum.
Journey stage | How the concept supports it |
|---|---|
Entice | Introduce the exhibit and shared space; help visitors discover relevant events. |
Enter | Support registration, workspace reservations, exhibit information, saved events, and member-card access. |
Engage | Offer maps, audio, event Q&A, and optional tools for creating or interacting with media. |
Exit | Invite feedback about the experience through an optional survey. |
Extend | Explore future reasons to return, including new programming and possible incentives. |
Team prototype: optional tools for participating during the visit.
Interactive Prototype
Explore the proposed visit.
Click around to explore a proposed museum visit: discover (DIS)CONNECTED, browse an event, or open the Experience area to see the media-making concept. Clickable areas highlight when you click outside an active control. This is a student concept prototype; some content and interactions are placeholders.
If the viewer requests access or does not load, use the direct Figma link below.
Designing For Choice
Digital participation needed to be a choice.
A central tension in the concept was inviting visitors to make memes and reels while responding to a desire for less screen time. We proposed short, purposeful interactions tied to the room: creating something together, looking up audio, or finding information for an activity.
The physical space was intended to remain worthwhile for visitors who preferred to keep their phones away. The app could help someone participate, but the exhibit, workspace, and events also needed to make sense without it.
This remained an important question to test. Enjoying a media-creation feature would not, by itself, show that the overall experience helped people feel present or connected. We would need to observe how people moved between the app, the room, and one another.
Optional media creation in the exhibit.
Workspace reservations for a different kind of museum visit.
Early Feedback
Visitors needed a clearer path into the experience.
The team documented three early reviews with people we knew, exploring event registration, navigation, and reactions to the concept. These were informal checks that helped us identify questions for the next iteration.
One reviewer was unsure whether event registration had been confirmed and expected saved events to be in the Experience area. Another initially looked for in-museum tools in a menu that was not clickable and suggested guidance in the creation room. A third needed time with the prototype to understand how the different parts connected.
Those observations pointed toward clearer confirmation states, more intuitive access to saved information, and a stronger introduction to the exhibit. Guidance from a person or kiosk was also a useful idea to explore for visitors who wanted help without starting in the app. These were next-step recommendations, rather than changes we had already validated.
Outcome & Reflection
The project connected audience research to a physical and digital experience.
Our outcome was a proposed program, a conceptual space plan, and an interactive app prototype, supported by research synthesis and early feedback. The exhibit, workspace, and after-hours program were not implemented, and we did not measure a change in attendance.
For me, the project was practice in leading an idea while keeping it connected to what we had heard. I moved between research, the physical concept, and detailed interface decisions, considering how each part could help people discover the program, arrive, and choose how to participate.
My next priority would be testing the full experience with people in the target age group, including visitors who prefer minimal phone use. Alongside app tasks, I would examine interest in the workspace, clarity of the concept, and whether after-hours activities fit participants’ routines. A practical pilot would also need decisions about cost, staffing, accessibility, and use of the museum space.
This project broadened how I think about UX: understanding the conditions that make an experience useful, then designing the space, service, and tools together.
Team: Jessica King, Margherita Weiner, Chinyere Ezekiel, Molly Mahon, and Evan Boby.