Find Your Marbles

design consultation for Marbles Kids' Museum

how might we provide playful ways to welcome and orient Marbles' guests across the museum campus?

Marbles Kids Museum is a critical institution in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Tasked with providing playful ways to welcome and orient museum guests and to help them navigate seamlessly around the museum campus, my team designed a research-based, guest-centered wayfinding experience. We worked alongside another team focused on improving the museum’s engagement with its larger exterior community

This project was completed as part of a class called "Design It Forward". Interdisciplinary teams of students partnered with nonprofits to solve their problems, under the guidance of IBM designers and IBM's Enterprise Design Thinking problem-solving framework.

my role

primary research (observation, interviewing) and secondary research, explaining the design research process to the non-designer members of our team, persona generation, as-is journey mapping, workshop facilitation, to-be scenario, presentation information architecture,

Slide 1 of 10: The creation of Marbles was an important factor in the development of downtown Ralei

Slide 2 of 10. Our goal is to enhance that connection and further intertwine Marbles within Raleigh

Slide 10 of 10. Marbles averages about 57,000 visitors to the campus every month.

Slide 1 of 10: The creation of Marbles was an important factor in the development of downtown Ralei

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as-is scenario

We synthesized our research into the following as-is scenario which summarizes the visitor pain points we recognized in our research. Click through to follow the Brooks family through a visit to Marbles.

Slide 1 of 15: Follow the Signs. The Brooks family hears about Marbles free day online and decides

Slide 2 of 15: Let's find parking. The Marbles lot is full so they park farther away at the municip

Slide 15 of 15: That was fun, now it's time to go home. The children stop playing and the family be

Slide 1 of 15: Follow the Signs. The Brooks family hears about Marbles free day online and decides

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image of the Brooks family, consisting of a grandmother, her son, and her son's two children

developing personas

The Brooks Family persona is composed of a Grandmother (Age 67), her son (Age 38), and his two young children, Noah (Age 8), and Violet (Age 5). Many of the pain points we observed occurred during first-time Marbles visits. Therefore, the Brooks family has never been to Marbles before.

research goals

What is the current experience like for Marbles' guests? My team spent about 3 weeks researching the existing Marbles Kids Museum guest experience. I assumed a leadership role during this phase of the project by explaining design research methods to my non-designer teammates and empowering them to conduct them on their own.

research methods

- examining the museum's website and marketing collateral

- fly-on-the-wall and participant observation

- unstructured and semi-structured Interview (with museum team members)

- on-site surveys (with museum guests)

- stakeholder mapping

- site mapping

- photography

- examining user-generated content (online reviews, social media posts etc)

We researched their mission, current engagement strategies and visitation rates and presented our findings to the Marbles Team for validation (see clickthrough below).

research synthesis

key pain points, takeaways & insights

Observations

There were 3 degrees of signage that compose Marbles' Wayfinding system: permanent, temporary, and changed-daily

Pain points for Marbles Guests

As a whole, the Marbles signage system was not cohesive. Even the restroom signs varied from space to space. This problem also posed accessibility concerns.
Between watching their children and visual/auditory stimulation, parents already suffer a large cognitive load at the museum. Therefore, they won’t offer more than a glance to figure out where to go before asking museum staff.

Pain points for Marbles Employees

Signs are mainly analog, making them time-intensive to change
- Marbles' takes pride in the fact that it is a screen-free environment
The root of the problem was a general lack of efficient inter-team communication. This invaluable insight was only uncovered through in-depth observation of the Marbles’ team’s internal operations. The Marbles team lacked a centralized communication system. In addition, each team was responsible for developing its own signage and communication for its own events, leading to a general lack of cohesion across the museum.

At this phase in the project, our design team split into two groups: one focused on improving Marbles' exterior engagement, and one focused on improving Marbles' internal campus flow and connectedness. I worked on the latter.

pivot!

After discussing our research findings with the Marbles team, we determined that, while it would be valuable, restructuring the teams’ internal communication was not feasible for the project scope. Therefore, we chose to focus our efforts on improving the current wayfinding system for the Brooks family. We re-framed their needs and summarized them in the following statements:

Needs Statement 1 of 2: The Brooks family needs a way to identify the Mables campus' offerings so that they can navigate effectively

Needs Statement 2 of 2:The Brooks family needs a way to access the museum services without having to del th overcrowding so that they can have a tress-free start to their experience at Marbles.

who? what? wow!: defining Hills

“Hills” are statements that align the design team around a single goal. They detail who is being designed for, what will be designed (in very general teams), and the value that design will bring to the client. We developed the following hills for our target personas and validated them with the Marbles team.

Hill 1 of 2: The Brooks family can identify and explore the Marbles campusby following exterior cues that connect the buildings

Hill 2 of 2: The Brooks family can begin their exerience at arbles in a stress-free way by orientin themselves in an ncrowded lobby.

what if the toilets were shaped like frogs?

(and other big ideas)

Sometimes to get the right solution, you have to ask some crazy questions and generate some even crazier answers. And we did. Every idea was met with a "yes, and...?". From candy-dropping, guest-directing drones to frog-shaped toilets, we considered as many ways as we could to make Marbles' wayfinding experience playful, fun, and engaging. Though drones couldn't personally direct guests (not on our budget at least), we could use the attributes of some of our craziest solutions to devise a more practical one.

to-be scenerio

To demonstrate the efficacy of our solutions to the client, we created the following to-be scenario which explains how our would solution solve the problems we observed in the as-is scenario.

Slide 1 of 5: To-be Scenario

Slide 2 of 5: Though the Brooks family is not familiar with the area, they can quickly recognize the

Slide 5 of 5: Violet has to go to the bathroom and quickly notices the sign with the bubbles and kno

Slide 1 of 5: To-be Scenario

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so how will we get there?:

design proposal

Slide 1 of 2: Our Solutions. Phase 1: 60 days. Consistent Signage that is appropriately placed wit

Slide 2 of 2: This slide shows images of large purple arrows that function as signage displayed in t

Slide 1 of 2: Our Solutions. Phase 1: 60 days. Consistent Signage that is appropriately placed wit

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Slide 1 of 4: Our Solutions. Phase 2: 6 to 8 weeks. Improve Connectedness. Visitors are guided ac

Slide 2 of 4: This slide shows an aerial map of the lies draw in the courtyard. The lines connect t

Slide 4 of 4: Navigational tools within a way finding system should enable guests to be empowered to

Slide 1 of 4: Our Solutions. Phase 2: 6 to 8 weeks. Improve Connectedness. Visitors are guided ac

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Slide 1 of 2: Our Solutions. Phase 3: 12 weeks. Optimize Lobby Flow. Moving the lobby desk farthe

Slide 2 of 2: Reorganizing the lobby will enable guests to orient themselves after entering the muse

Slide 1 of 2: Our Solutions. Phase 3: 12 weeks. Optimize Lobby Flow. Moving the lobby desk farthe

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implementation timeline

In 60 days, we will unite museum signage and add gree accents to the windows and doors. In 6 to 8 months, we will implement the courtyard navigation system. in 1 to 2 years, we will redesign the check-in desk.

enablement

Ultimately, our solution set works together to empower Marbles' guests.

By enabling the Brooks family to recognize and understand wayfinding tools independently, Marbles is empowering them to navigate effortlessly for a stress-free experience.

the gala

We presented our final design proposal to our client and their stakeholders at a Gala at Marbles Kids Museum.

reflection & next steps

Our proposal received overwhelmingly positive responses from the

Marbles Team. The team is discussing the potential implementation of our solutions.

Our research uncovered something really important- the lack of a centralized internal communication system. Time permitting, we would have solved the internal communication issues we observed within the Marbles team.

This project taught me a lot about collaborating with non-designers (engineers, business students, and even physics students) who did not understand the design process when we began the project. I found myself not only in the role of a student in the class, but also as a facilitator. There were a few bumps in the road but I became a better facilitator and advocate for our users in the process.

Check out the NC State College of Design's summary of the project here

acknowledgments

I couldn't have done this project without my team of designers, engineers, business students: Jecori Owens-Shuler, Kylie Ogburn, Cait Rathvon, Cole Ferguson, Paola Amparan, and Camden Conekin. Shout out and thank you to the IBM designers who guided us along the way!