Aquarium of the Pacific
Project Type Class Project
Role UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer
Team Emily Kneeter, Nick Harris, Mehrzad Hemati
Duration 2-week sprint
Platform iOS App
Tools Figma, InVision, Google Suite, Whiteboard, Post-its, Pen, Paper
Client Overview
The Aquarium of the Pacific is the fourth most-attended aquarium in the nation. It displays about 12,000 animals and more than 100 exhibits that celebrate the planet’s largest and most diverse body of water, the Pacific Ocean. In addition to its public programs and exhibits, the Aquarium is involved in numerous conservation efforts, including breeding and rehabilitating endangered species, sustainable seafood, watershed education, climate resilience, community science, and more.
The Problem
The Aquarium of the Pacific is looking for a way to expand user involvement, both inside and outside the aquarium, and address the issues caused by plastic waste pollution in our oceans. They want to create an app or mobile site to enhance their visitor’s experience at the aquarium and also encourage users to create more sustainable habits in their daily lives.
The Solution
Our team decided to create a mobile app to help parents engage their kids while at the aquarium as well as at home in order to facilitate immersive learning about the oceans and our Earth.
Contextual Analysis
In order to understand the intended users for our prospective app, the team made a visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific. Although we had hypothesized that our users would be children, we needed to support that idea with research.
First, we conducted a naturalistic observation in which we watched visitors interact with the touch pools, galleries and, most importantly, the Pacific Visions exhibit (the exhibit specifically about climate change).
We discovered:
Almost all visitors were parents with young children
Children were more interested in the hands-on and interactive opportunities in the aquarium
Not many young children were in the Pacific Visions area; primarily adults, some with older children
Our kids will be the ones inheriting this planet changed vastly by climate change and human impact, we must teach them to value the Earth as early as possible and to teach them how to care for it
Comparative and Competitive Analysis
After visiting the aquarium and getting a feel for the types of exhibits and education, the team sought to understand what other aquariums offered. We conducted a comparative analysis of some local and national aquariums. This helped us understand what aquarium visitors might expect, and highlighted areas in which we could improve the experience.
While researching the locations, we found that some aquariums had more than one mobile app, so we performed another C&C analysis focusing on the apps offered by the aquariums.
Interviews
Our observation at the Aquarium of the Pacific added clarity to our concept of who the users really are. Children are indeed the target audience of the app, but since many are so young and unable to read, they need help from their parents to navigate the interface.
In order to gain insight into what our users wanted from the app, we interviewed aquarium visitors, aquarium staff, and people with children of all ages.
“I am concerned for my children because they will be living in a very different world than I grew up in, in all sorts of ways.”
“Anything that increases interaction between visitors and exhibits is always welcomed.”
“My kids were really into the touch screen in the Pacific Visions area. So I think that if you can engage them, there’s an opportunity to teach kids that this is serious. ”
Affinity Mapping
In order to synthesize our user interview research, we created virtual sticky notes and organized them into “I” statements.
This revealed key user insights such as:
I am well informed about climate change and its effects
I am worried about my children’s future
I take my kids to the aquarium so they can have fun
I see value in game-like educational technology
Persona
Based on the findings from our affinity mapping, we created a persona to represent our users and to ensure we keep them in mind when designing the app.
Jessica has planned a trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific with her sons, ages 3 and 9. Her goal is to teach them about the ocean ecosystem in a fun way, but most importantly she wants to show them what will happen if they don’t take care of it. The kids love to watch the animals and play around in the touch pools, but Jessica feels challenged about making them understand the importance of caring for the ocean. She needs to find a more engaging way for them to learn the information.
How might we help Jessica teach her kids about ocean conservation in a way that engages them?
Feature Prioritization
With Jessica and her kids in mind, we began to brainstorm features that may help solve her problem. We used the MoSCoW method of prioritization because we were working within a very limited design period and had to focus on only the most vital features.
User Journey Map
After deciding on the features that we wanted to focus our app around, we created an aspirational journey map showing how Jessica might use the app to increase her children’s engagement at the aquarium as well as at home.
Sketching
After deciding on the features, we did a design studio to get some ideas about how our app might look and how to fit in all the features we felt were most important. We ended up with many sketches and low fidelity wireframes that we turned into paper prototypes, which were then tested and iterated.
From our paper prototype testing we learned:
Users expected a different order of the navigation than we had first designed
Users struggled to understand the Augmented Reality feature
Our iconography needed improvement
Moving forward with the design process and creating our medium fidelity digital wireframes, we addressed the issues raised in paper prototype testing.
Usability Testing
We performed five usability tests with our medium fidelity prototype, giving our testers three different tasks to perform:
Using the Explore function, search for a fish in the exhibit in front of you and pull up some information about it in the app.
Use the Future Vision function to see a projection of what might happen to our oceans if we don't take care of them.
Find the Quiz section in the app and take the quiz about water.
Overall, our medium fidelity tests revealed that our app is functional and only small changes are needed to be made and then tested with users again. After several iterations of the design and functionality of the app, my teammates and I created the High Fidelity wireframes and prototype.
Interface Design
Next steps:
Continue testing high fidelity prototype, especially keeping an eye on how users feel about the iconography
Introduce a Live Translation feature within the app to integrate Google Lens technology in a different way; enable aquarium visitors from around the world to easily read any text within the aquarium by simply pointing the phone at the information
Connect the aquarium’s existing webcams to the app, especially within the virtual aquarium so that users could select the animals they have saved to their aquarium and see what they are up to in real time
Poster to Display at Aquarium
In Retrospect
Being a part of this team and working to create something that seemed to fulfill an actual need was an uplifting and instructive experience for me. It showed me the vast opportunities of UX design and the way we, as individuals, can help to change the world in meaningful ways. It also taught me the importance of keeping an open mind when approaching a design project because I formed a particular vision in my head upon reading the project brief and had to consciously work at dispelling my preferences in favor of prioritizing the data revealed by our research. Most importantly, this project taught me to release my personal opinions and fully and openly embrace the perspectives and ideas of others.