Academic Project
UX / Interaction Design | Jan 2024 - Apr 2024
Symbolic Discovery Kit
This 14-week long interaction design project was part of SFU IAT 333 Interaction Design course, tasking us to come up with design proposal, customized to an organization in community. Our organization was Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, a registered museum in Vancouver Chinatown featuring the first Ming-Dynasty style garden built outside of China.
In this project, I took on the role of Project Manager and Lead Copywriter. I created the agenda for our team meetings, identified the items that should be discussed to inform and narrow down our concepts.
IAT 333 Interaction Design Methods
Team Go Bananas
Jae Eun
Valeriya
Haru
Yixuan
Tool
Figma
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Premiere
Blender
Main Roles
User Study
Primary/Secondary Research
Wireframing
High-fidelity Mock-ups
Check out our Final Concept video!
This is a video of the final concept that we landed on.
Let me take you through the design process of how we landed on this concept!
This is a video of the final concept that we landed on.
Let me take you through the design process of how we landed on this concept!
We started with gathering ethnographic data.
I conducted an in-person interviews with 8 first-time visitors and 1 marketing staff member. Their insights highlighted that the Garden feels “out of context”, and “something is missing” as the Garden is not very conducive to learning or doing more than just walking around.
Some of the visitors expressed that they wanted more interactive components to learn about the Garden, whether it related to the Garden's history or significance. As of now, a brochure, packed with text, is the sole touchpoint for the visitors to provide them context of the Garden.
Based on identified pain points, we created personas.
Specifically, the visitor personas showed how they are confused about what makes the Garden distinctive and why it is considered as Vancouver's top attraction.
Then we developed initial concepts anchored by our personas.
Digital Map
First concept was the digital map of the Garden, highlighting key landmarks. Users can scan QR codes placed in the Garden to access detailed descriptions of rooms and structures.
Scavenger Hunt
The second concept was a Scavenger Hunt, offering a way-finding opportunities to explore the Garden. The purpose was for the visitors to find the stickers and/or stamps to put on their leaflet, then win a prize.
What was the critique regarding our initial concepts?
The challenge that we faced while presenting the initial 3 concepts was that our design was not “grounded” into our personas. That is, our concepts needed to evidently show how they are particularly useful and relevant to our personas.
The main class critique was that we had to have personas “negotiate” and gauge if our story behind design is catered to potential audience. After the critique, I have decided to evolve our persona to anchor our design focus.
We revised our persona: Frida, first-time visitor from Mexico, hoping for more interactive component in the Garden to learn more about its history.
The overall class critique was: "I do not particularly see how your persona is represented in your user journey maps."
In response to the critique, we conducted a participatory workshop.
In order to better understand our end users, we facilitated a participatory workshop at the Garden. We invited the Garden’s docents and visitors and had them participate in a series of short, structured activities.
Wei
Garden's docent
"Fun is interconnected with learning, engagement and interactivity."
Sean
First-time visitor
"Fun is defined as something that people can feel (all 5 sense - see, hear, touch, taste, smell)."
Unexpected responses came out when we asked a mash-up question.
As part of our workshop, we asked our participants to create a collage based on a question mashing up two concepts (Disneyland and Classical Chinese Garden):
Me
"What’s the Disneyland version of the Chinese Garden?"
“The pursuits of Disneyland and the Garden are different. Fun is completely opposite to what the Garden represents.”
Thomas
Garden's docent
"If want to keep it the way as is and maintain the value of interconnectivity, then fun seems not to be a good focus."
Frank
Garden's docent
Me
"It's interesting that you mention about the Garden not associated with fun. Can you tell us more about that?"
“So Chinatown is the Disneyland. The Garden is an escape from that, it’s a relief from noise and crowds.”
Thomas
Garden's docent
Takeaways from workshop
We discovered that, before diving into such disputable ideas as 'fun', we need to first find out about what the Garden's identity is. We now wanted to focus on the educational aspect to help the visitors understand the Garden's significance. Hence we asked ourselves:
Team Go Bananas
How might we create a more curated and educational Garden experience for first-time visitors in order to help them understand the Garden’s significance to the Chinatown community?
From this 'how might we' statement, we started ideating for our final concept.
First mock-up: Symbol Discovery Guide
Combining our initial concepts of a digital map and scavenger hunt, we have come up with the idea of Symbol Discovery Guide, with the purpose of providing information of the significance of the Garden: symbolism.
The Guide includes a map, pinpointing where the symbolism is embedded in the Garden.
It also features direct quotes from the Garden's docents, bringing a unique point of view during the journey in the Garden.
'Symbol Discovery Guide' then evolved into 'Symbolic Discovery Kit', our final concept!
Our final concept is a Symbolic Discovery Kit. We designed it to help first-time visitors learn about the Garden and its rich symbolic meaning. Its goal is to provide a self-guided experience at their own pace.
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Let me walk you through the interaction design of the Symbolic Discovery Kit!
As first step of their journey, a first-time visitor picks up a brochure of the Symbolic Discovery Kit at the entrance.
We hope to spark the initial curiosity of the purpose of the Kit, as they see the front page of the brochure,
What is this pocket for?
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The visitor can then open the brochure to discover the Symbolic Map, pinpointing where Symbol Cards can be found.
Hover on each symbol!
By collecting physical artifacts, Symbol Cards, to be stored away in another souvenir, Symbolic Map, a component of interactivity is integrated into the visitor's journey.
Yin and Yang
1
中
山
公
园
What did I learn out of the entire project?
Overall, I have learned to “ground” our design. While presenting about our 3 concepts, the main critique that we received was that we had to “ground our design” into our personas more. After such a critique, we understood what it means that the personas “negotiate with [us] as we develop ideas”. After understanding what “grounding” means, I was more willing to change our personas and make them evolve based on our design focus.
For the future, I will continue having personas as the main characters of design narratives behind how our end users may use our design; they will help gauge if the narratives are believable for potential audience.
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