Pingfinn

Helping families get to know the penguins at a local aquarium, one penguin at a time.

Context

A local aquarium asked us to use interactive technology to make a visit better, without a set problem to solve. The aquarium has close to thirty gentoo penguins, and each one wears a coloured band on its wing. We designed for families with children aged 10 to 14, with one hypothesis: if visitors get to know the penguins as individuals, they will care more about life in the sea.

Impact

Approach

Starting with the visitors

We interviewed families, educators from other museums and biology students. We also observed visitors at the aquarium and at museums with a similar audience, to see how people use technology during a visit without us influencing them.

A five-day design sprint

I facilitated a design sprint around one question: how might we give children a personal attachment to sea life through technology? A decider from the project partner chose the concept, and we tested it at the aquarium on the last day.

Scan a penguin, meet a penguin

Visitors scan a QR code by the penguin pool, which opens an App Clip, so there is nothing to download. They point the camera at a penguin, and its band opens a profile with its name, age, personality, family, friends and love life. A quiz tells visitors which penguin they are most like.

What testing showed

Testing at the aquarium showed that it took too much effort to get started, the information felt unstructured, and visitors skipped long text. Some tried to tap the trait tags to learn more, since they looked like buttons, and the photo gallery pulled attention from the real penguins to the screen.

Checking accessibility

In my bachelor thesis, I reviewed the prototype against the mobile accessibility guidelines. The camera button and the trait tags had too little contrast for outdoor use, six of nine buttons in the quiz were smaller than 44 by 44 pixels, and the cards in the horizontal scroll had no sign of where you were. I described how I would fix each issue, and how accessibility could be part of the process from the first sketch instead of being checked afterwards.

Learnings