HEAR AND THERE
An audio tour system design for blind people in New York City Natural History Museum
Overview
Course
Designing for Museum
Client
New York City Natural History Museum
Group Member
Antonio Guimaraes, myself
Challenge
Design an audio tour system for blind people to tour the natural history museum.
Challenge for me
Communicate with clients, and communicate with a group partner who is blind.
Outcome
The audio file contains and possible deliver way.
Duration
February 2020 - May 2020
Role of me
Researcher, visual designer, UX design, communicator, and information translate
Idea
The idea comes from my partner Antonio, this project is part of his thesis at ITP. The goal of this project is to make blind people can learn and understand the information in the museum. The idea came from Antonio’s personal experience. He is a blind person who barely has experience of vision in his life, he likes to know and learn more from the museum but the condition does not allow him to do that. Fortunately, he has a good ear, many blind people have a good hearing ability, so he came up with the idea, to design a hearing system for the blind people to use in the museum.
Why work on the project:
I heard about this idea from the idea pitch in the class. I think it will be a good chance for me to get to know more people’s feeling from a different perspective. As a student who is in the film editing background, I think I could help Antonio to come up with a good idea of sound and storytelling.
Due to the COVID-19, we have not many chances to go for research. My teammate Antonio has never been to the museum. The information he got is mostly from me or research by himself form the website.
I got the chance to go to research at the museum before I know I am going to work on this project. That was the only time I have been to there, here is what I found:
Content and Vistors:
1. The museum is focused on natural, culture, history, and science
2. The main visitor age is 6-15 years old teenagers, for the children under 10, they go to the museum with their parents, grandparents, or with school field trips.
3. For the traditional exhibition, there are not many people are interested in that, most will just walkthrough. For the new media exhibition like T-Rex (The VR dinosaurs tour experience), many people are interested in that.
4. The visitors are also interested in the special exhibition or visit the diorama with special and unique designs and arrange.
Building and Facilities:
1. The museum has a long history.
2. The building structure is very confused, mostly need to walk through the stairs, which is not good for the blind person.
3. The path is narrow which will make the blind person hard to go through.
4. The Explore App which is the tour app for the museum is in a low signal which will give the visitors the wrong information.
5. For people who is diable, they can ask help from the volunteers or the museum staff.
6. Mostly dark light in the exhibition hall.
7. Many 'DO NOT TOUCH' sign which is difficult for blind person to find direction.
Research
Dark environment in the exhibition hall
Lots of people in the special exhibition hall
Vistors are mostly kids with parents and no protection for the exhibiting area and it do not all to touch which is hard for the blind person to access.
Thinking Processes
Our project is different from others, we need to talk to the clients to get some suggestions and keep going. We had three client meetings, on each meeting we clear ideas and to know the next steps. Due to the requirement at home, the client's meeting and collaborative working are all doing remotely which adds a certain degree of difficulty to the production.
Challenge
How to deliver the message? How to make the blind people know there is a switch to turn on for audio play? Which hall we can do?
Our Solutions
We thought about using Arduino to play the sound and make it connect to the PBC or connect to an app. For the way to find the switch to turn on the audio, we thought about using a tactile sign stick on the wall or the floor near to the diorama. This was inspired by the museum for blind people. The visitors in that museum are all blind and they can touch the 3D print object to know what is in the diorama. We thought to use 3d print to print out a piece of a sign with the contour of the object in the diorama. When the blind people touch the piece, the audio turns on and they can know what is inside the diorama.
First
Meeting
PBC connect to Arduino for sound playing
The 3D print piece set diagram (In Yellow)
The 3D print piece appearance
The second idea was, we thought about using inferred, when blind people use their guide rod to touch the sign on the floor, they can trigger the sound in their headset.
For the option of the exhibition hall, we chose African mammals hall and Origins human cultural hall.
Infrared detect devices set diagram (Yellow dots on the floor)
Feedback from the Clients
They recommend another hall which is the North American Mammal, they also sent us some information about that hall.
They thought about letting people touching something would be very hard to do in user experience design. Our teacher asked us to work on the content first to show the clients.
Challenge
To tell the information from what perspective? The content needs to use for both peroson who can see and the blind person.
Our solutions
In order to create a feeling of making the blind people feel they are stepping into the diorama scene, we decided to make animals talked like a person and add in some sound effects to make them know what is surrounding the animals. We chose the target user is from age 8-15.
We chose to do grey fox and opossum from the animals' list in the North American Mammals Hall, and we made two versions of that, one is the normal speaking with no music and the other one is music, sound effect with two animals talking in the first-person perspective. The information is from the educator guide on the museum website.
Second
Meeting
Sound only:
With music and sound effects:
The Diorama views of Grey fox and opposum
Clients feedback
They like the way we present about the diorama but they said the audio is not the only target to the kids, they need it to target more general visitors.
They also thing the audio clip is too long and they wish to have audio clips cut to different small piecs that the user can skip to the clip they want to listen.
Challenge
How to tell a story from a third perspective and how does the user experience for the app.
Our Solutions
From the suggestions from the instructors, we made three different choices of audio of three different animal dioramas which are sound only, sound with music, and sound with music and sound effects. For the app design, we drew a flow chart and basic interfaces for the app. My teammate Antonio suggests I make the button of the app to be big, which will offer a convenient way for the blind people to use the app.
Third
Meeting
The rough wireframe for the app. Blue and white squares are buttons. The color matches the theme color of AMNH and the big square button is designed for the blind person. They can easily tap on the button.
Three Choices of the audio contents:
Sound Only
Coyote
Sound with music
Raccoon
Sound with music and sound effects:
Wolf
The Clients' choice
The Diorama views of each animal
Clients feedback
Almost all the clients like the version of the wolf which is sound with music and sound effects. A few clients like the one with only sound because it is in a clear order. They want to know how can the app work. And they also mention about how to let the blind people know where the tag is to make the audio play.
Discussion Before the Final Presentation
When I am designing the app, I came up with the question that if the clients want the app can be both uses at home and at the museum? My teammate Antonio suggested the way to get the information which is from scanning the QR code or from the NFC which is Near Field communication that often uses on Apple pay. Because the QR code requires the camera correctly to point to the point, it will cost a lot of time so he suggested using the NFC. I came up with another question which is how can a bill people know where the tag is. Antonio said the blind person must use the app with another person who sees and help. I wonder, if a blind person could go to the museum with a person who can see, the person who can see could tell him what the diorama is about and they do not need to use the app we design. What if we make the NFC could detect a wider device? Antonio insists to design the app need to help with another person for use. After our discussion, we decided to make a demo about how to use and tell about our assumptions.
Final
Outcome
For the final, we came up with an app that can use for both virtual and in the museum tour audio app. When people are at home, they can choose the diorama and listen to the audio description. When people are at the museum. they can use their phone to tap on the NFC tag and get the information. We plan to place the NFC tag on each corner of the diorama which can make the blind people can find that easier.
Final Presentation Video:
Our presentation starts at 17:20. There are some missing screen share parts, which can find in the slides below: