Service Design/CX
Academic + Professional Project
The Kohl Children's Museum project focuses on innovatively adapting the museum's traditionally indoor, hands-on exploration activities to continue nurturing the curiosity and creativity of children aged infancy to 8 years, in the face of pandemic-related restrictions. The challenge lies in transforming these experiences to fit new safety norms while retaining the core essence of play-based learning, ensuring these adapted activities remain engaging, educational, and accessible to young learners during a time of unprecedented change.
Goals
Adaptation to Pandemic Constraints: To adapt the museum's traditional indoor experiences to fit the new normal imposed by the pandemic, ensuring continuity in enriching young minds.
Promote Play-Based Learning: To maintain and emphasize the museum's core philosophy of fostering curiosity and creativity through play-based learning, regardless of the changes in the delivery format.
Objectives
Develop Alternative Experiences: To create innovative, engaging, and safe alternatives to the museum's traditional indoor activities that can be accessed under pandemic restrictions.
Ensure Accessibility and Engagement: To ensure that these adapted experiences are accessible to a wide range of children and maintain the same level of engagement as the museum's in-person experiences.
Educational Impact Assessment: To assess and ensure that the adapted experiences continue to provide educational value and support developmental milestones appropriate for children from infancy to 8 years old.
Community and Stakeholder Involvement: To involve the community and stakeholders in the adaptation process, gathering feedback and suggestions to enhance the relevance and appeal of the new offerings.
Problem
How might we creatively transform Kohl Children's Museum's indoor experiences into innovative, accessible, and safe formats that continue to foster play-based learning and enrich young minds, especially in the context of ongoing pandemic restrictions?
Role and Responsibilities:
Role:
As a Design Researcher and Service Designer in the Kohl Children's Museum project, my role involved conducting in-depth research to understand the needs and preferences of young learners and their families, and designing innovative service solutions to adapt the museum's offerings to a pandemic-affected environment, ensuring engaging, educational, and accessible experiences.
Responsibilities:
Conducted interviews with the museum team, educators, and parents.
Synthesized gathered data into clear opportunity areas and service-blueprint.
Facilitated ideation sessions and co-creation workshops with the museum team.
Developed low-cost, user-friendly prototypes for testing.
Conducted field tests of prototypes with parents and children.
Outcomes:
Abstraction Ladder
Utilizing the abstraction ladder and contextual mapping, opportunity areas underwent deeper exploration.
This evaluated various contexts - Child, Family, Museum, Virtual Learning, Society - and multiple levels, ranging from Play and Learning to Childhood and Life Skills.
Opportunity Areas
Upon delineating diverse opportunity areas, these facets were showcased to the client to immerse them in the design journey.
Their feedback proved invaluable, bridging gaps within these areas and offering the potential for synergies between select domains.
Final Concepts and Low-Cost Prototypes
Using concepts from the ideation workshop, components were designed, keeping in mind the guiding principles. The components were then combined into design concepts which were developed into prototypes for testing with the stakeholders.
Service Blueprint of the Final Concept
Through primary and secondary research, crafted a comprehensive service blueprint. This detailed visualization pinpointed stakeholders, touchpoints, as well as front-end and back-end operations, ensuring transparent communication of the entire service experience.
Process
Qualitative Research
Goals
Understanding User Needs: To gather in-depth insights into the preferences, behaviors, and learning styles of young children and their families in the context of pandemic restrictions.
Evaluating Current Offerings: To assess the effectiveness and appeal of the museum's existing indoor activities, understanding what elements resonate most with the target audience.
Identifying Adaptation Opportunities: To identify opportunities for adapting current museum experiences to formats suitable for pandemic conditions, ensuring they remain engaging and educationally valuable.
Exploring Play-Based Learning: To delve into how play-based learning can be effectively incorporated into new service designs, maintaining the museum's educational philosophy in a changed environment.
Gathering Community Feedback: To engage with the local community, including parents and educators, to gather feedback on proposed adaptations and identify additional needs and preferences.
Secondary Research
Reviewing existing literature and studies on child development, play-based learning, and adaptations in museum experiences during the pandemic.
Outcome: Gained a foundational understanding of best practices and trends in engaging young learners in non-traditional environments.
Parent and Teacher Interviews
Conducting interviews with parents and teachers to gather insights on children's learning preferences, behaviors, and reactions to current museum offerings.
Outcome: Acquired direct feedback on the needs and expectations of the primary users and influencers, informing the design of adapted museum experiences.
Usability Testing
Testing newly developed or adapted museum activities with a sample group of children, observing their interactions and gathering feedback on engagement and learning outcomes.
Outcome: Identified strengths and areas for improvement in the new experiences, ensuring they are both engaging and educationally effective.
Opportunity Prioritization
Analyzing data from various research methods to prioritize opportunities based on feasibility, impact, and alignment with the museum's mission.
Outcome: Developed a strategic plan focusing on the most promising adaptations, ensuring efficient use of resources and maximum benefit to young learners.
Learnings and Challenges
Field-testing in adverse conditions
Navigating the COVID-imposed constraints, especially concerning interactions with young participants, presented significant fieldwork challenges. However, by adopting rigorous safety measures, the hurdle was surmounted, enabling the extraction of real-time feedback from parents and children during prototype interactions.
Low-cost prototypes
Operated within tight financial confines, the emphasis pivoted towards developing cost-effective prototypes. Yet, the paramount objective remained - ensuring authentic interactions and an uncompromised user experience. The portability of these prototypes also became crucial, given the necessity for seamless transport to diverse field locations.
Impact
National Recognition for the museum
The awards program recognizes the top ten children's museums as voted on by USA Today readers from an original list of 20 nominations selected by a team of travel experts. Kohl Museum placed fourth in the Top 10 list in 2021.
Service Design/CX
Academic + Professional Project
The Kohl Children's Museum project focuses on innovatively adapting the museum's traditionally indoor, hands-on exploration activities to continue nurturing the curiosity and creativity of children aged infancy to 8 years, in the face of pandemic-related restrictions. The challenge lies in transforming these experiences to fit new safety norms while retaining the core essence of play-based learning, ensuring these adapted activities remain engaging, educational, and accessible to young learners during a time of unprecedented change.
Goals
Adaptation to Pandemic Constraints: To adapt the museum's traditional indoor experiences to fit the new normal imposed by the pandemic, ensuring continuity in enriching young minds.
Promote Play-Based Learning: To maintain and emphasize the museum's core philosophy of fostering curiosity and creativity through play-based learning, regardless of the changes in the delivery format.
Objectives
Develop Alternative Experiences: To create innovative, engaging, and safe alternatives to the museum's traditional indoor activities that can be accessed under pandemic restrictions.
Ensure Accessibility and Engagement: To ensure that these adapted experiences are accessible to a wide range of children and maintain the same level of engagement as the museum's in-person experiences.
Educational Impact Assessment: To assess and ensure that the adapted experiences continue to provide educational value and support developmental milestones appropriate for children from infancy to 8 years old.
Community and Stakeholder Involvement: To involve the community and stakeholders in the adaptation process, gathering feedback and suggestions to enhance the relevance and appeal of the new offerings.
Problem
How might we creatively transform Kohl Children's Museum's indoor experiences into innovative, accessible, and safe formats that continue to foster play-based learning and enrich young minds, especially in the context of ongoing pandemic restrictions?
Role and Responsibilities:
Role:
As a Design Researcher and Service Designer in the Kohl Children's Museum project, my role involved conducting in-depth research to understand the needs and preferences of young learners and their families, and designing innovative service solutions to adapt the museum's offerings to a pandemic-affected environment, ensuring engaging, educational, and accessible experiences.
Responsibilities:
Conducted interviews with the museum team, educators, and parents.
Synthesized gathered data into clear opportunity areas and service-blueprint.
Facilitated ideation sessions and co-creation workshops with the museum team.
Developed low-cost, user-friendly prototypes for testing.
Conducted field tests of prototypes with parents and children.
Outcomes:
Abstraction Ladder
Utilizing the abstraction ladder and contextual mapping, opportunity areas underwent deeper exploration.
This evaluated various contexts - Child, Family, Museum, Virtual Learning, Society - and multiple levels, ranging from Play and Learning to Childhood and Life Skills.
Opportunity Areas
Upon delineating diverse opportunity areas, these facets were showcased to the client to immerse them in the design journey.
Their feedback proved invaluable, bridging gaps within these areas and offering the potential for synergies between select domains.
Final Concepts and Low-Cost Prototypes
Using concepts from the ideation workshop, components were designed, keeping in mind the guiding principles. The components were then combined into design concepts which were developed into prototypes for testing with the stakeholders.
Service Blueprint of the Final Concept
Through primary and secondary research, crafted a comprehensive service blueprint. This detailed visualization pinpointed stakeholders, touchpoints, as well as front-end and back-end operations, ensuring transparent communication of the entire service experience.
Process
Qualitative Research
Goals
Understanding User Needs: To gather in-depth insights into the preferences, behaviors, and learning styles of young children and their families in the context of pandemic restrictions.
Evaluating Current Offerings: To assess the effectiveness and appeal of the museum's existing indoor activities, understanding what elements resonate most with the target audience.
Identifying Adaptation Opportunities: To identify opportunities for adapting current museum experiences to formats suitable for pandemic conditions, ensuring they remain engaging and educationally valuable.
Exploring Play-Based Learning: To delve into how play-based learning can be effectively incorporated into new service designs, maintaining the museum's educational philosophy in a changed environment.
Gathering Community Feedback: To engage with the local community, including parents and educators, to gather feedback on proposed adaptations and identify additional needs and preferences.
Secondary Research
Reviewing existing literature and studies on child development, play-based learning, and adaptations in museum experiences during the pandemic.
Outcome: Gained a foundational understanding of best practices and trends in engaging young learners in non-traditional environments.
Parent and Teacher Interviews
Conducting interviews with parents and teachers to gather insights on children's learning preferences, behaviors, and reactions to current museum offerings.
Outcome: Acquired direct feedback on the needs and expectations of the primary users and influencers, informing the design of adapted museum experiences.
Usability Testing
Testing newly developed or adapted museum activities with a sample group of children, observing their interactions and gathering feedback on engagement and learning outcomes.
Outcome: Identified strengths and areas for improvement in the new experiences, ensuring they are both engaging and educationally effective.
Opportunity Prioritization
Analyzing data from various research methods to prioritize opportunities based on feasibility, impact, and alignment with the museum's mission.
Outcome: Developed a strategic plan focusing on the most promising adaptations, ensuring efficient use of resources and maximum benefit to young learners.
Learnings and Challenges
Field-testing in adverse conditions
Navigating the COVID-imposed constraints, especially concerning interactions with young participants, presented significant fieldwork challenges. However, by adopting rigorous safety measures, the hurdle was surmounted, enabling the extraction of real-time feedback from parents and children during prototype interactions.
Low-cost prototypes
Operated within tight financial confines, the emphasis pivoted towards developing cost-effective prototypes. Yet, the paramount objective remained - ensuring authentic interactions and an uncompromised user experience. The portability of these prototypes also became crucial, given the necessity for seamless transport to diverse field locations.
Impact
National Recognition for the museum
The awards program recognizes the top ten children's museums as voted on by USA Today readers from an original list of 20 nominations selected by a team of travel experts. Kohl Museum placed fourth in the Top 10 list in 2021.
Service Design/CX
Academic + Professional Project
The Kohl Children's Museum project focuses on innovatively adapting the museum's traditionally indoor, hands-on exploration activities to continue nurturing the curiosity and creativity of children aged infancy to 8 years, in the face of pandemic-related restrictions. The challenge lies in transforming these experiences to fit new safety norms while retaining the core essence of play-based learning, ensuring these adapted activities remain engaging, educational, and accessible to young learners during a time of unprecedented change.
Goals
Adaptation to Pandemic Constraints: To adapt the museum's traditional indoor experiences to fit the new normal imposed by the pandemic, ensuring continuity in enriching young minds.
Promote Play-Based Learning: To maintain and emphasize the museum's core philosophy of fostering curiosity and creativity through play-based learning, regardless of the changes in the delivery format.
Objectives
Develop Alternative Experiences: To create innovative, engaging, and safe alternatives to the museum's traditional indoor activities that can be accessed under pandemic restrictions.
Ensure Accessibility and Engagement: To ensure that these adapted experiences are accessible to a wide range of children and maintain the same level of engagement as the museum's in-person experiences.
Educational Impact Assessment: To assess and ensure that the adapted experiences continue to provide educational value and support developmental milestones appropriate for children from infancy to 8 years old.
Community and Stakeholder Involvement: To involve the community and stakeholders in the adaptation process, gathering feedback and suggestions to enhance the relevance and appeal of the new offerings.
Problem
How might we creatively transform Kohl Children's Museum's indoor experiences into innovative, accessible, and safe formats that continue to foster play-based learning and enrich young minds, especially in the context of ongoing pandemic restrictions?
Role and Responsibilities:
Role:
As a Design Researcher and Service Designer in the Kohl Children's Museum project, my role involved conducting in-depth research to understand the needs and preferences of young learners and their families, and designing innovative service solutions to adapt the museum's offerings to a pandemic-affected environment, ensuring engaging, educational, and accessible experiences.
Responsibilities:
Conducted interviews with the museum team, educators, and parents.
Synthesized gathered data into clear opportunity areas and service-blueprint.
Facilitated ideation sessions and co-creation workshops with the museum team.
Developed low-cost, user-friendly prototypes for testing.
Conducted field tests of prototypes with parents and children.
Outcomes:
Abstraction Ladder
Utilizing the abstraction ladder and contextual mapping, opportunity areas underwent deeper exploration.
This evaluated various contexts - Child, Family, Museum, Virtual Learning, Society - and multiple levels, ranging from Play and Learning to Childhood and Life Skills.
Opportunity Areas
Upon delineating diverse opportunity areas, these facets were showcased to the client to immerse them in the design journey.
Their feedback proved invaluable, bridging gaps within these areas and offering the potential for synergies between select domains.
Final Concepts and Low-Cost Prototypes
Using concepts from the ideation workshop, components were designed, keeping in mind the guiding principles. The components were then combined into design concepts which were developed into prototypes for testing with the stakeholders.
Service Blueprint of the Final Concept
Through primary and secondary research, crafted a comprehensive service blueprint. This detailed visualization pinpointed stakeholders, touchpoints, as well as front-end and back-end operations, ensuring transparent communication of the entire service experience.
Process
Qualitative Research
Goals
Understanding User Needs: To gather in-depth insights into the preferences, behaviors, and learning styles of young children and their families in the context of pandemic restrictions.
Evaluating Current Offerings: To assess the effectiveness and appeal of the museum's existing indoor activities, understanding what elements resonate most with the target audience.
Identifying Adaptation Opportunities: To identify opportunities for adapting current museum experiences to formats suitable for pandemic conditions, ensuring they remain engaging and educationally valuable.
Exploring Play-Based Learning: To delve into how play-based learning can be effectively incorporated into new service designs, maintaining the museum's educational philosophy in a changed environment.
Gathering Community Feedback: To engage with the local community, including parents and educators, to gather feedback on proposed adaptations and identify additional needs and preferences.
Secondary Research
Reviewing existing literature and studies on child development, play-based learning, and adaptations in museum experiences during the pandemic.
Outcome: Gained a foundational understanding of best practices and trends in engaging young learners in non-traditional environments.
Parent and Teacher Interviews
Conducting interviews with parents and teachers to gather insights on children's learning preferences, behaviors, and reactions to current museum offerings.
Outcome: Acquired direct feedback on the needs and expectations of the primary users and influencers, informing the design of adapted museum experiences.
Usability Testing
Testing newly developed or adapted museum activities with a sample group of children, observing their interactions and gathering feedback on engagement and learning outcomes.
Outcome: Identified strengths and areas for improvement in the new experiences, ensuring they are both engaging and educationally effective.
Opportunity Prioritization
Analyzing data from various research methods to prioritize opportunities based on feasibility, impact, and alignment with the museum's mission.
Outcome: Developed a strategic plan focusing on the most promising adaptations, ensuring efficient use of resources and maximum benefit to young learners.
Learnings and Challenges
Field-testing in adverse conditions
Navigating the COVID-imposed constraints, especially concerning interactions with young participants, presented significant fieldwork challenges. However, by adopting rigorous safety measures, the hurdle was surmounted, enabling the extraction of real-time feedback from parents and children during prototype interactions.
Low-cost prototypes
Operated within tight financial confines, the emphasis pivoted towards developing cost-effective prototypes. Yet, the paramount objective remained - ensuring authentic interactions and an uncompromised user experience. The portability of these prototypes also became crucial, given the necessity for seamless transport to diverse field locations.
Impact
National Recognition for the museum
The awards program recognizes the top ten children's museums as voted on by USA Today readers from an original list of 20 nominations selected by a team of travel experts. Kohl Museum placed fourth in the Top 10 list in 2021.
