This was a 6-month long capstone project that was a part of my academic curriculum at University of Washington, Seattle. The project received an audience choice award (out of 69).
Problem: Like many other modern museums, the Henry Art Gallery aimed to expand beyond its 'on-site' and 'online' resources by establish its presence on a mobile platform. The Henry Art Gallery believes that something powerful comes out of the meeting between art and people - such as creative thinking, inspiration and critique. Hence, the "Henry Hi!" project was an initiative taken, in this direction that was scoped to develop an iPhone application for the Henry. The app should endorse making use of technology in an innovative so as to engage visitors with an interactive and amusing experience while they are at the Henry gallery. Enhancing their 'visit to museum experience' will foster dialogue amongst people through the contemporary art at the museum and further enable global circulation of the contemporary art and ideas.
Problem: Like many other modern museums, the Henry Art Gallery aimed to expand beyond its 'on-site' and 'online' resources by establish its presence on a mobile platform. The Henry Art Gallery believes that something powerful comes out of the meeting between art and people - such as creative thinking, inspiration and critique. Hence, the "Henry Hi!" project was an initiative taken, in this direction that was scoped to develop an iPhone application for the Henry. The app should endorse making use of technology in an innovative so as to engage visitors with an interactive and amusing experience while they are at the Henry gallery. Enhancing their 'visit to museum experience' will foster dialogue amongst people through the contemporary art at the museum and further enable global circulation of the contemporary art and ideas.
Solution (Project in Summary): Background study and recent trends indicated that the main purpose of the museums is shifting from being informative to being engaging. The reason behind this transformation is partly due to changing expectations and behaviors of people towards museums and partly because museums are now targeting a larger audience to sustain their business. Through interviews and on-field, it was found out that the audiences at the Henry Art Gallery are varied as per their knowledge about art and their purpose of visit. Only some people visit to know about art but majority people expect amusement. Hence, for the app, the target audience is personified as the ones who want a more engaging experience than an informative one.
Henry Hi! increases the amount of time a visitor spends with the art by means of engaging them with the art, thus enriching the visitors’ experience at the Henry. It guides the user through moments of interaction where they –
The app is developed using iOS SDK 4.3 and Xcode 4 was used as an IDE to design app’s user interface and compile and build the code. It used Objective C as its base programming language. It supports all the iPhones devices above 3G.
About Henry Art Gallery: Since its founding in 1927, the Henry Art Gallery has been a sole art museum in Pacific Northwest region and a pioneer in finding and exhibiting contemporary art and ideas for its audience. It has a permanent collection of over 25000 objects and has proven to be a primary resource and training ground in visual arts for students, artists and general public.
Henry Hi! increases the amount of time a visitor spends with the art by means of engaging them with the art, thus enriching the visitors’ experience at the Henry. It guides the user through moments of interaction where they –
- Scan the QR Code found besides every object.
- Explore more about the art object via –
- Reading description about the object
- Watching associated audio/videos/media objects
- Learning about other related or closely matched interest objects
- Saving their art
- Share their favorite art on Facebook to inspire dialog amongst art lovers.
The app is developed using iOS SDK 4.3 and Xcode 4 was used as an IDE to design app’s user interface and compile and build the code. It used Objective C as its base programming language. It supports all the iPhones devices above 3G.
About Henry Art Gallery: Since its founding in 1927, the Henry Art Gallery has been a sole art museum in Pacific Northwest region and a pioneer in finding and exhibiting contemporary art and ideas for its audience. It has a permanent collection of over 25000 objects and has proven to be a primary resource and training ground in visual arts for students, artists and general public.
Wireframes and Final Designs
Screens through the process - Choose your option, instructions for user guidance, scanning QR code, detecting and displaying art and its information
Final mockups with branding
Henry Hi! App Demo
Capstone Project Poster for Henry Hi!
