Teammates: Lauren Turek, Julie Schiff

In many ways this was my first experience with user experience design, for reasons twofold.

First, Museum Design is a very specific practice, as the goal is to engage as many people as possible, all of whom have unique learning styles. The practice is often multidisciplinary. It can involve architects, programmers, designers, videographers, audio producers, fabricators, and historians, all working together to engage visitors in terms they understand. Some people are visual learners and engage first with pictures. Others are auditory, while some people need to see, or if possible, touch objects. A good museum design tries to accommodate all of these aspects to bring in the public.

Second, Where the River Bends was a project about an early American port city. Scottsville is about two hours west of historic Williamsburg, and is situated on a distinctly oxbow turn point in the James River. This oxbow bend made it the perfect port town. As a smaller local museum, the budget was limited, and it was almost entirely allotted to the printing of materials. It did have a space in a beautiful old church, full of light, and we were allowed to make some modifications, but construction was out of the question. A slight additional complication was the presence of fixed pews in the floor that wouldn’t be easily removed. So we decided that the best way to break up the space and guide the flow of visitors was by constructing a series of plinths that referenced the bend in the river. We mounted 20 foot long banners on the plinths, so visitors could walk along and view the timeline and artifacts on a structure shaped like the river it was devoted to.