Overview.
The redesign of the British Museum app and map is designed to help visitors navigate the museum. Within the app, one of the main features is augmented reality, to assist with wayfinding around the museum. The map has been redesigned to be user-friendly for navigation.
Opportunity Statement.
This creates an opportunity to add an augmented reality feature to The British Museum app to help users navigate around the museum to desired locations as well as design a user friendly map.
Research.
Through thorough research, I gained insights into the current and potential applications of augmented reality in museum settings. Utilising observational and secondary research, I uncovered compelling research suggesting that visitors often struggle with navigation within the museum. These findings informed the direction of the project.
With 4.1 million annual visitors, including both international and local guests, facilitating easy wayfinding throughout the museum is key. Successful navigation enhances visitor experiences and increases the likelihood of return visits.
Problem Statement.
Through research, it is clear that the existing wayfinding systems in place have the potential to be developed with many visitors finding navigation challenging around the museum.
Vision to Visual.
I started my design process with a user journey map allowing me to visualise and understand how a user will interact with my application to create a user centered experience.
Low-fidelity wireframes allowed me to develop a core layout and highlight the key functions of my application, with multiple iterations refined through user testing.
The App Design.
The high-fidelity prototypes show a user-friendly interface with features designed to enhance a user’s wayfinding experience.
The key features include:
Digital Map
Provides users with an interactive map as well as their live location.
AR Directions
By displaying arrows over the live camera feed it will give users directions to a desired location with the museum.
Departments
The museum’s departments are organised by name and by room, making the information on each collection user-friendly to find while navigating.
Augmented Reality.
Augmented reality represents the future of indoor wayfinding, particularly in complex environments like museums. By simply overlaying arrows from a user’s camera feed, they are provided with stress-free directions. With the arrows being colour-coordinated to the map provides a seamless interaction between the two wayfinding systems.
The Map Design.
User testing.
Redesign of map and app.
Current map and app design.
A/B testing comparing the current map with the redesigned version revealed that the redesigned map was more successful in helping users find room numbers quickly, thus making navigation stress-free. Subsequent user testing with both the map and app enabled iterative improvements, resulting in a more user-friendly wayfinding system.