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ART IS:The Visual Art & the American Experience Exhibit: A Virtual View

EDIT732 Group 1 - Website Prototype�for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture

May 11, 2020

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The Clients & the GMU Team

Adam Martin �Chief Digital Officer

Dianne Stevens

Erin Morris

Claudia Bolaños

Masae Lee

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The Design ‘Problem’

We’re looking into ways to expand our physical museum exhibits into more digital and online spaces. We’d be interested in hearing your ideas!

African American history and culture is woefully undertaught in a lot of schools.

One of our permanent exhibits – the Visual Art and the American Experience exhibit – has been difficult to translate into a digital space.

People look at the art, but don’t always seem to understand it or connect with it.

Help people recognize that “African American” art doesn’t have to be separate from fine “art”!

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The Design ‘Solution’

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Testing & Results

Several young people and an adult UX manager performed several tests for us…

  “A cool and helpful website for African American museum and a good resource for school”

“I would give the link to students as a resource for a project.”

  “A helpful site for history and analysis of African American art”

“Some functions in the prototype were not active”

“The site got ‘stuck’ in the middle of the page using a touchpad ”

“I think the project's strengths are its images and 3D…helpful visual impact and exploration.” 

“Weakness is that art often comes after text, while most people would be more interested in art. Clickable elements are tough to notice, and on some pages, images are clickable while on others they are not..” 

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What is Art? Homepage

  • Interactive website allows users to virtually visit the Visual Art and the American Experience exhibit
  • Interactive and engaging activities
  • Simple navigation

https://sites.google.com/view/nmaahc-test/index

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Interactive Activities

  • “Explore the Exhibit” Virtual Gallery

  • “Curated Galleries” Virtual Activity
  • ”The Collection” Informational Sections
  • “About the Exhibition” Introduction
  • “Help” Section

https://sites.google.com/view/nmaahc-test/index/about

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Explore the Exhibit

  • Walk through exhibits
  • Users follow the walkthrough of the gallery space by clicking and dragging the mouse across the photo
  • Hotspot icons offer interesting facts about art

https://sites.google.com/view/nmaahc-test/index/virtualgallery

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Curated Galleries

  • Special types of galleries

  • Galleries sorted by category

  • Users navigate by clicking and dragging the mouse across the VR photo of the gallery

  • Hotspots offer information on art

  • Additional info on each artwork in the bottom “Featured Works” section

https://sites.google.com/view/nmaahc-test/index/curated-galleries

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The Collection

  • Individual breakdown of each artwork currently/previously featured in the museum

  • Filter images by various categories

  • Share images on social media

  • Download images through the Smithsonian's Open Access program.

https://sites.google.com/view/nmaahc-test/index/thecollection