Enhancing the Museum Experience through Personalized Journeys

In 2020, as part of the pioneering "Muzeler" project, I embraced the role of the main designer, focusing on interaction, UX, and product design. My mission was to innovatively merge the traditional museum experience with a transformative digital aspect. Collaborating closely with a researcher and another designer, we proposed and developed a project that catered to diverse museum visitor needs, ranging from casual explorers to dedicated professionals.

My project partner and I, both avid history enthusiasts and regulars at museums, noticed a clear problem with the museum experience: there weren't enough engaging ways to learn, and the information about the artifacts was often lacking. We realized that just hiring a guide or using the usual apps wasn't enough. So, we decided to find a better solution that would make museum visits more informative and interactive.

We embarked on a journey to deeply understand museum visitors' preferences. This involved conducting thorough market research and competitor analysis. Our goal was to pinpoint exactly what was missing in the current landscape of museum experiences.

Our insights led us to conceptualize an app that would revolutionize the museum experience. The app's value lay in its capacity to offer online exhibits, personalized recommendations, and remote access to museum archives. The cornerstone of our design was to cater to the diverse interests of museum-goers.

We developed a prototype and subjected it to real-world testing. This involved conducting one-on-one museum visits, initially without the app, to observe and confirm our hypothesis about the existing gaps in visitor experience. The subsequent visit incorporated our app, which significantly enhanced user engagement by providing readily accessible information about the artworks.

As the lead designer, I steered the project through various phases, ensuring each element aligned with our vision of a digitally enhanced museum experience. My responsibilities spanned from conceptualizing the user interface to crafting the overall user experience. The project unfolded in several key stages:

Personalized Feed: I engineered a dynamic and interactive home page, serving personalized content like event briefs and weather forecasts, tailored to the visitor's interests and location. This feature was central in guiding visitors efficiently.

Tour Planning: I developed a flexible and intuitive interface for tour planning, allowing visitors to either customize their tours or choose from pre-designed ones, focusing on specific interests and historical eras.

Interactive Experience Phase: I played a pivotal role in creating an interactive map loaded with detailed museum and artifact information. This phase was enriched with multimedia elements, making the museum journey more engaging and informative.

Enhancing Accessibility: To promote and simplify access to the Müzekart (yearly subscription), I integrated a digital purchase option within the app, broadening its reach and convenience for users.

In this project, I dealt with several tough challenges, including working through lots of red tape and fitting a lot of museum information into our app. I played a key role in solving these issues, which helped make the project successful.

Our idea eventually became a real app, but due to bureaucratic reasons, we couldn't join the final design and development team. However, I learned a lot from this experience. It taught me how to manage complex projects, adapt to unexpected changes, and turn creative ideas into real products.

This project was a great learning experience and it's made me better prepared for future work in UX design. It's shown me how to overcome obstacles and create designs that people find useful and enjoyable.

'Muzeler' stands as a hallmark of my commitment to blending culture and technology, transforming the traditional museum visit into a personalized, immersive digital experience. My contributions as the main designer were pivotal in shaping the project's direction and outcome. If you're interested in a deeper dive into my role and the project's intricacies, please feel free to reach out.

For more: https://murathan.co/work2