Pooja More | Portfolio

Designing an Immersive educational experience for museums

World of Dinosaurs

A case study was conducted to design an immersive museum VR experience aimed at making learning more engaging and interactive. The project began by interviewing participants who had visited museums or used VR, gathering insights to create an empathy map and a list of user requirements. These requirements were prioritized using MoSCoW rules, which helped shape the User Requirements Specification. The design phase included creating hand-drawn sketches and high-fidelity VR prototypes in Figma. Usability testing was conducted through a heuristic evaluation and two user tests: First-click and System Usability Scale (SUS). The results highlighted key areas for improvement, setting the stage for further iterations.

Number of Participants

28 (aged 18+)

Team members

Duration

3 months

Roles and Responsibilities

Team lead

Research planning

User Research

Prototyping

Usability testing

Approach

Problem Discovery & Solution

Design

Evaluate

Reflection

Problem Discovery & Solution

We tried to understand the museum visitors' problems while interacting with VR edutainment applications in public places like museums. We have essentially gathered primary data from Semi-structured Interviews and group discussions. Some secondary data gathered from the literature helped us discover more insights and support the primary data more scientifically. A total of 12 people were interviewed initially by the team and each member was responsible for interviewing 2 users.

Our team brainstormed new features and identified 28 user requirements by using the Context-of-Use Analysis (CoUA) method. We prioritized these requirements using the MoSCoW rules and created a User Requirements specification that included the UR ID, type, description, rationale, source of rationale, and priority for each requirement.

Must-have requirements were as follows:

Information overload can be avoided by quizzing users at intervals and giving users an option to skip.
The VR experience should be provided with usage instructions, especially for naive users.
The VR game should provide a prohibited list (things must not do).
The VR experience can depict story/knowledgeable content regarding dinosaurs like their life story, species of dinosaurs, their food habits, etc.
Medical assistance for people experiencing cyber-sickness or general assistance for people facing technical difficulties.
The duration of the VR experience should be no more than 5 mins.
Controls like menus to navigate through the VR experience.
The VR experience must be in first-person view. l Wi-Fi will be required to connect to the VR experience from the VR headset.

Must-have requirements

Information overload can be avoided by quizzing users at intervals and giving users an option to skip.
The VR experience should be provided with usage instructions, especially for naive users.
The VR game should provide a prohibited list (things must not do).
The VR experience can depict story/knowledgeable content regarding dinosaurs like their life story, species of dinosaurs, their food habits, etc.
Medical assistance for people experiencing cyber-sickness or general assistance for people facing technical difficulties.
The duration of the VR experience should be no more than 5 mins.
Controls like menus to navigate through the VR experience.
The VR experience must be in first-person view. l Wi-Fi will be required to connect to the VR experience from the VR headset.

Should-have requirements were as follows:

Users should be seated during the VR experience.
The VR experience will include a visual environment with realistic graphics.
The VR experience will include a spatial auditory environment to make it feel more immersive.
The colour-blindness mode should be available for colour-blind users.
The number of skips in a quiz can be managed by providing 3 chances of skips to the user and these skips will be shown visually on the display.
VR experience should be available in multiple languages.
An eye mask designed for a VR headset can be provided to museum visitors to maintain the safety and hygiene of the user.
To avoid audio inferences the VR experience can be based in a sound-insulated environment.
A single-handed mode can be available for people with physical disabilities.

Should-have requirements

Users should be seated during the VR experience.
The VR experience will include a visual environment with realistic graphics.
The VR experience will include a spatial auditory environment to make it feel more immersive.
The colour-blindness mode should be available for colour-blind users.
The number of skips in a quiz can be managed by providing 3 chances of skips to the user and these skips will be shown visually on the display.
VR experience should be available in multiple languages.
An eye mask designed for a VR headset can be provided to museum visitors to maintain the safety and hygiene of the user.
To avoid audio inferences the VR experience can be based in a sound-insulated environment.
A single-handed mode can be available for people with physical disabilities.

Design

Hand-drawn sketches

Once the user requirements were collected, the team began the design phase. They started by compiling a list of screens necessary to create the user interface of the application. Each team member contributed to this process by creating their own sketch. Subsequently, the best features were selected after a group discussion where everyone presented and explained their design ideas.

High-fidelity Designs & Prototyping

We researched various software options for creating a VR application prototype. Due to time constraints and the project's scope, the team decided to use Figma for high-fidelity designs and prototyping. However, the team recognized that Figma has limitations when it comes to achieving the same level of immersion as an actual VR application.

Before starting the high-fidelity designs, the team created a design system to ensure consistency throughout the system. This design system included typography, colour scheme, branding, and UI elements, which are also essential criteria for UI design.

Open Sans was chosen as the preferred font for the experience due to its readability and appropriate spacing between characters. Additionally, Open Sans is accessible to people with dyslexia, making our application available to a broader population. The team also included different color schemes to adjust the visuals for people with color blindness. Three different color schemes were provided: Protan, Deutan, and Tritan.

Evaluation

First Click Test

Task 1

Navigation and understanding of the usage instructions of the VR application. You are using a VR application for the first time. Therefore, you are trying to know how to use the equipment provided to you by the museum authorities.

Task 2

Selection of desired settings. You want to adjust colours, languages, mode of access and controller settings. Find a way to make these adjustments in the application.

Task 3

Navigating to the content of Stegosaurus. If you wish to learn more about Stegosaurus, find a way to learn more about Stegosaurus through the app.

Task 4

Answering quiz questions post-content. You wish to check the knowledge retained; hence you answer some quiz questions.

Task 5

Skipping a particular question if you do not wish to answer it. You do not wish to answer a specific question, so you find a way to skip it.

Task 6

Exiting the VR experience. The time is up, and you wish to leave the VR experience. How would you find your way out of the virtual world? The results of the first-click test showed that Task 2 and Task 4 had lower success rates.

After conducting a post-interview, we understood that the users found the term "Colour" under settings to be vague. This issue could be solved by renaming the setting items or explaining the details in a tooltip. The results of Task 4 were due to a lack of details in the prototype for answer options. An example image in place of placeholders could help evaluate Task 4 better.

System Usability Scale (SUS)

The SUS is a questionnaire that evaluates the acceptability of the system by its users. It consists of ten questions and a five-point scale where one is strongly disagree, and five is strongly agree.

The results of the SUS are shown in the table below. This result means that the system gave the participant the impression that it was at an acceptable level. Only P3 had a perfect score, which means that this participant was either very satisfied or the participant may have had a knowledgeable bias towards the system and the interviewer. The mean score was 69.5, which can be interpreted as an acceptable system but with room for improvement.

Reflection

Based on our study, we found that Figma is a useful tool for prototyping and testing VR prototypes. However, it may not be the most efficient option for prototyping for VR. Due to the scope of the project, we used Figma to test the design decisions made by the research team. There are other more complex tools such as Unity3D, Mozilla Hubs, and Unreal Engine available in the market that can be used to create more immersive and realistic prototypes. Some users reported that they did not feel as immersed in the prototype due to Figma only offering a 2D view.

Additionally, some users found the labels used in the prototype to be confusing. Therefore, we recommend that the content be delivered in simpler vocabulary that is easier for users to understand. Based on the results of our usability test, a more complete prototype could help us better understand the appropriate response for the Q&A activity in the experience.

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