Science Museum + Falmouth University (MA Graphic Design)

In 2019 the Science Museum embarked on an ambitious project, to digitise a quarter of a million objects in its remarkable archive. This ongoing digital project aims to give public access to an astonishingly diverse collection of items from science, technology, engineering, medicine, transport and media, many of which have never been on public display.

Together these amazing objects tell the story of our world, however, discovery of these objects relies on audiences knowing what the Science Museum has in its digital archive. This highlights a specific problem, how do you encourage public access and exploration of the digital collection?

This was the challenge posed to students studying on the MA Graphic Design (online) course, an innovative online Masters qualification from Falmouth University, UK, with a student cohort from around the globe.

Students was tasked with answering the following brief, which was curated in close collaboration with John Stack, the Digital Director of the Science Museum and Stuart Tolley. Students had an eight weeks period to respond and develop an exploration tool for discovering the collection.

The Brief:
Explore and discover prototype design solutions to present information to the public in relation to public access to the digital archive collection.

Design a visualisation, user interface (real or imagined), or exploration tool for discovering the collection. Create ideas, test, play and prototype your design solutions, which could be interactive, built, animated, machine generated “computer vision” tags, storyboarded or presented as a series of proposed designs.

Student work:

Winnie Wu (above):
In the process of rethinking engagement with the Science Museum Group Archive, I used unique object data to create print-on-demand T-shirts as wearable moments in time for people to take home a piece of history.

These T-shirts came together as a collective memory — statement pieces that spark conversation and a celebration of items made in England, memories realised in a tangible form for all to see. Each T-shirt came with a hangtag with collectible stories about the object, and the packaging is reminiscent of receiving a time capsule.

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Benjamin Parfitt (above):
As it stands, there are an estimated 425,000 3D objects held by the Science Museum, most of which aren’t on display as space has become an issue for the objects. A way to prevent this issue arising further sees the step in of augmented reality. Using augmented reality will allow digital versions of the objects to be placed in the surroundings of the relevant curated exhibition space which will be aided by an application that will accompany each exhibition called ‘Explore’ and will be linked to the Science Museum’s digital archive collection to provide more insight about the object on screen. The desire to use augmented reality derives from the important of user interaction within a museum space and can be accessed more easily by the public with it being able to be linked with a smartphone or tablet.

To build on this strategy, the exhibition spaces can be related to a singular theme such as; materials, for example. Using this strategy plan will allow for a sustainable route moving forward and can allow for further exhibition spaces more tailored for a specific theme. In the exhibition space to create a natural focal point will be an installation piece relating to the relevant exhibition on show. To keep the content fresh for each exhibition space, the accompanying application will be looked at to change with each coming exhibition to help aid with a tailor-made experience when attending the exhibition spaces.
https://parfittbenjamin.com/

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Sarah Burri-Glenville (above):
To present information, explore and discover the 7.3 million digitised objects from the digital archive collection, I designed a playful exploration tool allowing young adults, families with children aged 8+ and school groups to gather information when an object is interacted with.

Attracting visitors, and as an introduction to the game, there would be a platform strategically placed inside the museum, with four or more touch screens on each side. Taking centre stage on the top there would be a spectacular 4D hologram of the game showing the movements of the players controlled with their screens.

This would allow onlookers and players to visually participate in the wonder of the hologram. A new future technology only reserved for museum visitors. SCIENCE MUSEUM PROJECT I Presentation The idea of the game would be for the teams to escape a series of archive rooms, moving around using finger touch movements similar to an Ipad. To give some fun stress adrenaline
to the players there would be a race to the exit.

Each player would put on a headset to listen and converse with their other team players. With their chosen avatar, on the touch screen, they enter an archive room in 3D mode, to which they must work together as a team to figure the way out with the clue paper provided.

Objects can be picked up and looked at 360°, other items can be collected as useful tools. Each time an object is interacted with, an information text box comes up allowing players to read and study whilst looking for clues. Noises are also added to give a sense of reality to the players.

In case of difficulty deciphering a clue, a Science Superhero can help when called upon, this would enable hope to the younger players so they do not get demotivated. If a family needed to move along with their visit it would be fine for someone else to jump in and carry on with the game as each room is different. A superhero figurine and the game itself for the playstation or xbox, could be purchased in the gift shop on the way out, continuing education about archive history at home.

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Alex Hughes (above):
I responded to the Science Museum brief by taking the collection offline. The audience at the Museum is diverse in wanting a snapshot of a wide variety of objects, as well as some who are after encyclopaedic results. As such, I created a book that celebrates the items that often go unnoticed, and further still, this book is an exploration of all the surplus items that are hidden inside the storage hangar at Wroughton. The book focuses on the idea of a forgotten treasure, with way-finding and exploration a key theme. The final design features the texture and materiality of the hangar, with a factual and detailed synopsis on each item found there.

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Usha Unnikrishnan Unny Cheravallur Mana (above):
I really enjoyed answering the Science Museum project brief. I had designed an App where an information based on an artefact is discovered. The designs are more contemporary based with a space theme to give a feeling that it is happening in another world. Firstly, I illustrated step by step process of idea generation on how it will be seen via the user. Secondly, taking inspirations from some game design, sketch out initial concepts based on research. Discover the Artefact is a Game App where the user selects any letter and began to travel through a hall way passage to a glass dome where they hunt for the hidden selected letter inside the dome to reveal the information of random artefact based on letter selection. This app is played from anywhere as my target audience is between 15–17 years and could bring the curiosity since its played on any surface via portable touchscreen projector. If the user wants to view the app from their home, just download the app and view it by connecting to the Portable Smart Touchscreen Projector. There were many researches made for making my designs and concepts into a more user-friendly way. The purpose behind designing a game was to make in more user friendly and to bring curiosity and interest among the audience. As VR was my initial format, I began illustrating based on VR and the after some critical feedbacks, i thought of making an App instead of VR as VR takes a lot of time and effort to make. App design is very new to me, so I had to research more on how to make an app design and what is the basic principles for UI and UX design. Figma was one option where I took to test my designs and put it into action. Overall, It was a great experience to design this App as I studied a lot about the artefacts of Science Museum and learned as I m from India which is a huge opportunity for me to explore and view certain wonderful artefacts.

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Tanya Hardie (above):
Embracing emerging technology trends, I created a playful and interactive immersive experience that allows the user to explore the collection in their own environment, using AR technology.

My inspiration was drawn from a book within the Science Museum Group collection called “The power of tens”. The book showcases a spectacular journey from one billion light years to the realm of the atom at a power of ten levels of magnification. One of the scenes within space shows orbits flying towards the reader.

A new technique that is being widely used, is a parallax scroll which creates an illusion of depth in a 2D scene of distance. Representing each museum as a different orbit from the powers of ten book, I used a parallax scroll effect to create the illusion that the orbits are flying towards you as you scroll. These orbits become clickable, allowing you to explore the individual museum collections.

I have created a journey of exploration through clustering related objects and utilising key trends, such as, tagging. As space became my theme, I found that stars are noticeably different in size and colour as they get older; blue/white when they are new stars and big and red when they are older. I used the stars to create a timeline by age of the collection and then used constellations as a way to cluster related objects together.

I wanted to make it really simple for the user to refine their search and to navigate around the collection easily. I have done this with a simple filtering system that narrows down the stars shown on the screen and clusters those related together in their constellations.

The user can enter an AR experience, where the artefacts will float around the users head, as if they were in space, but within their own realities and environment. This immersive experience brings the museum to life digitally with the ability to view up close each object and interact with it in 360 degrees. This experience not only makes viewing the full collection more convenient, it creates a connection between the user and the artefact by allowing them to explore in depth.

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Laura Santoro Plata (above):
For this project I’ve decided to focus on the gamification factor, focusing on a specific segment of the whole audience of the museum that is young adults.

The final outcome that I designed is a VR game that will be displayed in different part of the city (or country, or world?) through some temporary booths with the VR equipment — allowing also multiplayer experiences.

The booths are shaped and designed as time capsules. Inside, there is a screen where they are asked to input some data and then express their preferences on a set of themes — like photography, space exploration, medicine, etc. The game will use the player choices to pick one from a set of storylines that will most fit the user interests.

Having picked the storyline, the user is then invited to start the game experience by wearing the VR equipment. In the game, the user becomes a time traveller exploring the past. They are equipped with a camera to record their experience and a “hand scanner” tool that can identify objects they encounter. The game will lead the user through several scenes and areas, asking them to explore and complete tasks that involve interacting with some of the collection objects. Some of these objects will need to be rebuilt, fixed or used in the appropriate way, or given to game characters, in a sequence of challenges. These challenges will give the chance to learn more about the objects and their workings, as well as the context of the society and world around them. This will be the “main quest” that progresses the story and gives certain points and achievements.

In addition, there will be other objects of the Science Museum collection, less interactive, that the user can “scan” with the hand scanner and record. Scanning an object will show their description but also make the object become part of a personal database that the user can review at any time. Finding and scanning objects will give more points, special achievements and rewards, a kind of optional “side quests” for users that enjoy exploring and collecting.

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Woody Martin (above):
With many apps now adopting a “swipe right/left” functionality, I knew that incorporating this with “flash cards” would be a familiar and well received concept amongst my target audience.

The idea is that you would browse exhibits and items from the collection as well as curating relevant artefacts by swiping. Doing so allows the website or app to learn your preferences through the ‘swipe right to dislike/swipe left to like’ model and then serves up more items that it has identified as similar through machine learning. This method increases traffic to less popular or more obscure items within the collection that could be overlooked if left to manual navigation, while proving more useful to the user by showcasing relevant items and reducing time spent navigating.

Each card will show a top-level overview of each exhibit such as, title or name, dates, places and main function but will link to a more in-depth article if the user so wishes. Each card can also be added to curated mood boards for research projects to aid collaboration on research projects or to share with friends. Mood boards hosted by guest curators well established in their relative fields can also be enhanced with virtual lectures. AR/VR is also available so you can handle the exhibit in your own home — allowing a closer examination than you could enjoy at the museum.

To add more depth, there is scope for quizzes to be added which could lead the user to more exhibits in order to answer questions and compete with other users to ‘gamify’ the experience. This could help engage new user bases within the younger groups who would feel more acclimatised to consuming technology in this way than books and museum visits. This idea can also be implemented on desktop through the use of buttons instead of swiping. In the current climate this could also prove useful by offering an opportunity for visitors and classes to enjoy the museum virtually while waiting for it to be safe to visit again.

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Please visit https://falmouth-design.online/ for more information about enrolling to study on the part time MA Graphic Design (online) with Falmouth University.