Design Challenge Competition Pilot Test for a New Museum in the Middle East
Client: New Museum in the Middle East | Location: Middle East
We led a text message-based diary study to help a digital design firm pilot test a national design competition with children and families, in partnership with a New Museum in the Middle East.
OVERVIEW
Over the course of two years, we worked with a New Museum in the Middle East to prototype its new digital portal for youth users ages 6-16. Through the digital portal, youth can participate in monthly at-home “Design Challenge Competitions,” where they design and build a chain reaction using objects they find at home and submit videos of their creations to a public competition.
Building on our previous work, we teamed up with the portal’s designers to test a mock version of the Design Challenge Competition with children and families in the Middle East, with a goal of refining the experience before its full-scale launch.
APPROACH
Our process was highly collaborative. We managed research efforts remotely from the United States while the designers created a test portal for participating families to access at home on their own devices. The museum then invited families to participate in the mock Design Challenge Competition over a long weekend and coordinated data collection following our protocols and with our guidance.
We used two methods to understand families’ experiences with the Design Challenge Competition:
Diary Study: We texted parents twice a day to allow them to share their real-life experiences with the Design Challenge Competition through photos, videos, and audio messages.
Virtual Interviews: We led 15-minute virtual follow-up interviews at the end of the diary study to give families (youth and parents) the chance to provide additional context and clarification of their experiences.
We rapidly analyzed the data and created a highly visual report that featured synthesized trends and actionable insights alongside participants’ words and images.
CLIENT TAKEAWAYS
The Design Challenge Competition (and the digital portal that houses it) is an ambitious project in the region and for a museum generally. Through the pilot test, we learned that for the most part, youth enjoyed the experience and looked forward to participating again. We also identified several challenges and barriers to participation for the designers and the museum to address before launching the full-scale experience.
The designers and the museum used our insights as a launching pad for iterating many aspects of the Design Challenge Competition, from technical aspects of the portal to the challenges themselves to marketing the opportunity to families in the region.