![\"Tessellation](\"http:\/\/www.mnemonic.studio\/memo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/rubiks4.png\")
<\/a>Beyond Rubik’s Cube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The prototype was an important tool that let our teams work toward a common understanding and build our ideas together; without it we would have discovered our miscommunications very late in the development process. (It all worked out in the end.)<\/p>\n
This isn’t necessarily a common situation, but it exemplifies the challenges of communicating multimedia experiences simply through words. What constitutes a ‘fun’ game? What makes for an ‘engaging’ interface? These kinds of subjective assessments can be nebulous when presented in words, but an actual digital prototype, even a simple one, can align team members on goals and expectations.<\/p>\n
Mitigating Risk<\/h4>\n
Sometimes developing a digital exhibit can be a little frightening – because it’s ‘complicated.’ You may be working with new or custom technology, or building something that pushes the limits of what computers are capable of. You may have an idea for a game or simulation that risks being too convoluted to pull off successfully.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, I worked on the design and development of exhibits for the National Museum of Mathematics; in this case, every exhibit was complicated, either because of new technology integration, complex math algorithms, or intense calculations that risked slowing our computers to a crawl. In prototyping these experiences before the design and production phases of the project had even begun, our team was able to resolve many of the project’s biggest challenges and identify and isolate those that remained. <\/p>\n
By starting off with the riskiest technical challenges, these “Proof of Concept” prototypes helped us budget and allocate resources more effectively, and freed our team to focus on designing intuitive interfaces and engaging experiences.<\/p>\n
Designing for Humans<\/h4>\n
It’s often said that a visitor needs to be engaged with a digital exhibit within seconds or they’ll choose to move along (how many seconds is subject to debate). If said exhibit is at all confusing or frustrating to use, most visitors won’t stick around to learn its quirks. <\/p>\n Prototyping is one of the best ways to assess the usability of a multimedia exhibit. Watching visitors (or staff unfamiliar with the project) try to decipher navigation, gameplay, and other modes of interaction can be a humbling experience for the design team, but it provides the insight to make necessary improvements. <\/p>\n Tweaking interface elements like size, color, language, and layout can make a huge difference in successfully leading visitors through a digital experience. Prototyping can also help developers assess how much ‘handholding’ is needed for complex experiences: can visitors figure it out on their own, or should some form of guidance or instruction be incorporated into the exhibit?<\/p>\n When developing hands-on exhibits for science centers and children’s museums, it’s common for designers to build full-scale mockups out of plywood or even cardboard; this helps make sure everything is readable, reachable, and accessible to visitors.<\/p>\n For digital exhibits, full-size mockups – even using paper or masking tape – can help the development team understand the scale of a media installation. This can likewise inform interface development, as designers place content and interactive elements in such a way to make them physically accessible and intuitively located. This is particularly important for large scale or non-traditional media installations; a button in the corner of a designer’s laptop screen may become impossible to reach when scaled up to wall or tabletop size.<\/p>\n For multi-user experiences, this kind of prototyping can help designers optimize each user’s personal space. A few years ago I was part of a team developing a multitouch table application for the Caguas Science Center in Puerto Rico. We knew we needed a good amount of throughput, but didn’t want to crowd visitors together too uncomfortably. A simple graphic mockup of the app, viewed on a comparably-sized display, helped us intuitively find a ‘sweet spot’ for the interface’s scale and layout.<\/p>\n In earlier times, digital exhibits often became a dumping ground for unedited content. Since anything that didn’t fit into a label or graphic panel could easily be presented digitally, curators could take up all the ‘virtual’ space they needed for deep content dives. <\/p>\n But ‘more’ is not necessarily better when it comes to engaging visitors; today, we’re smarter about this, and our ubiquitous mobile devices (for better or worse) remove any real obligation to provide comprehensive content through multimedia.<\/p>\n Digital prototypes provide an easy way to see how content ‘feels’: how much is too much, and at what point does the user become overwhelmed? What typography choices provide the needed balance between legibility and density? When built on a parallel schedule with label writing and other content development, these prototypes can also help developers allocate what content goes where – graphic vs media – for maximum impact.<\/p>\n This all sounds great in theory, of course, but how can a team with limited resources make multimedia prototypes? In part 2<\/a>, I’ll take a look at some inexpensive tools and techniques – both high-tech and low-tech – that teams can use to test, visualize, and experiment with their digital exhibit ideas.<\/a>
Liberty Science Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nVisualizing Scale<\/h4>\n
Wrangling Content<\/h4>\n
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