The Museum highlights Mississippi artists and celebrates the contributions of arts and entertainment enterprises in every artistic discipline. The museum educates through interactive exhibits that visually and kinesthetically challenge, entertain, and inform visitors.
I worked with Gallagher & Associates' UX Department on five interactive media installations and the design of the overarching takeaway system for The Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience (The MAX) in Meridian, Mississippi.
I had a client facing role and worked to collect visitors profile information in order to create personas, as well as discuss and ideate the interactive media installations, the visitors’ experience through the museum, and takeaway system.
Kitchen table: An interactive installation composed by a long table divided into six eating areas, and at the center, there are various big and small dishes that can be paired on each eating area to create different Mississippian dishes.
Once the plate combination is set, RFID readers will detect the plates, and a unique story about the dish will be projected on the eating area.
The Juke Joint is an interactive space resembling a Juke Joint with a bar area where the countertop interactive is located, and a staging area displaying the stage interactive.
The Juke Joint Countertop is a physical and interactive bar composed of a wooden countertop that has four screens embedded (one is ADA), each screen has a seat and headphones to hear various stories of blues legends.
Using the menu displayed on the screen, visitors can select a legend.
The Juke Joint Stage is a physical and interactive installation composed of an interactive screen in front of a real Juke Joint stage. On the screen, the visitors can create their own blues band by selecting an artist for each instrument displayed on stage. Each artist has a style that the visitor can preview.
Once all the artists are selected on the screen, the visitor taps on the ‘Start Button’, and the new band that is created will play a unique song. The visitor can adjust the volume of each instrument on the screen to create different variations of the song. Additionally, at the staging area, the instruments that are being selected are lit using staging lights.
Artist Studio: This installation showcases the Mississippian artists and their techniques to create their sculptures or paintings. The installation resembles an artist easel made of a 44-inch screen located at the top of the easel and a tablet located at the bottom.
Using a leap motion sensor on the tablet, the visitors use their hands to mimic the artist technique while simultaneously learning about the artist. At the completion of the interactive, visitors will have created their own piece of art.
School Yard: This installation takes visitors back to school. There are six tablets located on a wooden table, each tablet is paired with a digital painting pen. Each tablet represents a student notebook.
Using the digital painting pen, the visitor taps on the tablet to open the notebook to five questions. The visitor selects a question, and a Mississippian artist will respond with a personal story during their teen years. After answering the question, the artist prompts the visitor to draw something about the visitor’s experience in school. This drawing will be saved in a common canvas, and the visitor can send the drawing to their email as a takeaway.
I worked on the information architecture of the previously described interactive media installations by creating user flows, storyboards, user scenarios, and wireframes.
I worked closely with the content strategist to ensure the copy worked within the installation functionality and fit within the optimal dwell time of the interactive media installation.
I created various paper prototypes and InVision prototypes that were tested to quickly confirm or dismiss ideas and to validate usability and functionality.
My contribution to the team ensured the following:
Through user testing, I was able to identify issues with the physical design of the exhibit and address these issues before fabrication
The stories were told in a concise fashion in order to maintain user engagement
The interactive media installations had clear functionality and usability
Overall the user takeaway matched the intended exhibit experiential goals