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Mobile-first virtual museum - The discovery of Ardi

Fall 2022

About

This virtual museum depicts the discovery and classification of Ardipithecus ramidus, better known as Ardi, the oldest human relative ever discovered. This exhibit was part of a cumulative anthropology project where students were instructed to partake in a deep dive study of a hominid species.

Link to project

Design

I found through experience in researching for this project and other anthropology assignments that many biological anthropology research websites are not mobile-friendly. Therefore, it can be hard to read about bioanth on mobile devices.

I wanted this project to be an exhibit that was clicked through, similar to like walking through a real-life museum exhibit. I have had experience trying to use Wikipedia-style informative websites on topics and found myself going down rabbitholes, which is something I wanted to avoid.

Due to the mobile form factor, there were specific needs such as legibility, ensuring media fits on the page, and ensuring scrollability–especially with the 3D models. Additionally, mobile devices carry unique needs such as dynamic sizing which is not often addressed by many web pages.

To combat the particular issues faced by mobile devices, this project utilized a large font size, a dynamic photo sizing feature, and dynamic sizing techniques for text, boxes, divs, and more.

Post-project design review

This project overall is really well-designed for a very basic, freely-hosted museum exhibit for an undergraduate class assignment. Even now, in Spring 2024, I still feel proud of the content and design of the exhibit overall. However, there are definitely aspects that I would, and may in the future, change.

First, after continuing my studies in UX, I would definitely add a smaller back button in the top left-hand corner of each exhibit page. Additionally, to pair with this, I would add an interactive progress element to show visitors’ progress and pages left in the exhibit, for example:

A progress bar such as this would help with the overall feeling that the participant was not endlessly stuck in a virtual museum page, while also giving a good overview of the exhibit’s content.

Additionally, I would incorporate a “jump to top” feature incorporated in each page upon reaching the bottom.

These are small touches that would greatly enhance the experience of the museum overall.