Project Overview
The Challenge
The Goal
How do you make a museum feel inviting to visitors who do not naturally gravitate toward exhibits, especially children and first-time guests? Many museum experiences rely on reading, watching, and observing, which can leave some audiences disengaged before they ever connect with the content.
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The challenge was to design an experience that encourages curiosity and movement through space, turning exploration itself into the way people learn, rather than something that happens only after they stop at a display.
Create a flexible, role-based system that gives guests a personal reason to explore. By pairing simple quests with physical interaction and digital support, the experience aims to make discovery feel like an active process while remaining realistic to imagine in a real museum setting.
My Role
Experience & Systems Designer, Developer
This was a solo project. I handled the research, experience design, system structure, and development of the interactive prototype in Unity, from early concept through a functional walk-through experience.
Systems Design
Role System
Guests take a short quiz to receive a role, such as archaeologist or historian. Each role comes with a simple quest that shapes what they look for and how they move through the space, giving their visit a sense of purpose and direction.
Interaction System
Artifacts are paired with kiosks and hands-on elements that encourage guests to learn by doing rather than reading. Guests can collect favorite artifacts along the way, which appear in a personal virtual museum at the end of the visit as a record of their experience.
Development Highlights
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Conducted user research, empathy mapping, and journey mapping to understand how different audiences engage with museum spaces
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Researched emerging technologies and interactive exhibit trends to inform system feasibility
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Designed a modular experience structure that can be adapted to different museum collections
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Built a walk-through interactive museum prototype in Unity featuring role assignment, artifact kiosks, and quest progression
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Developed a virtual artifact collection system that visualizes each guest’s personal experience
Artifact Dredge Minigame
Interacting with Artifact
Walkthrough Video
Empathy Mapping
Outcome & Takeaways
What Worked
The role-based structure created a compelling narrative for guests and repeatability that would greatly improve the average guest experience.
What I'd Improve
With more time, I would expand user testing and refine how the system could be customized by museum staff without technical setup.
What the Project Shaped
This project fundamentally changed how I approach experience design, teaching me how to balance creative vision with research in a way that was new to me.
Project Status
Completed
Sept. 2025 - Nov. 2025