PacSci Data Exhibit

The Pacific Science Center (PacSci) in Seattle commissioned Schema Design to concept, design and produce an exhibit to teach what data is, on the most fundamental levels, to young folks visiting the museum, and to explore what the outcomes of sharing individual data can be.

I was brought in later in the design/ideation phase and helped steer the overall vision and concept after a few initial drafts weren’t sticking with the client.  Working with designer Dwayne Franco and content strategist (and artist) Eryn Kendig we developed an experience model around whimsical questions about participants’ opinions of specifically Pacific Northwest concerns, such as whether the Sasquatch is real or not along with a few personal, non-identifying, demographics requests.  

This was then combined with a highly abstracted design system of particles whose aspects represented each opinion from the survey.  For instance, if a participant preferred sun over rain their particle would have a warm color gradient, while those who profess belief in Sasquatch would get a “hairy” outline treatment to their particle.  Once a survey was complete participants could optionally share their particle to a larger projection screen where it joined others to be sorted by various cross-references of demographic and opinion data from the survey.

Along with exhibit designers at PacSci I worked on general layout of physical screens, hardware selection and infrastructure, and general UX and UI.  PacSci provided the physical and interior design from their internal team, riffing off of the design system we created at Schema.  

Once the core creative was approved Dwayne Franco created polished layouts based on rough comps and user flows I created.  Creative director Sergei Larionov provided final design guidance and on-site fit-and-finish to the digital aspects of the interactive during final installation with things like typography updates and layout adjustments to make everything feel right in the actual physical environment.

I led software development, along with technical infrastructure and digital install, with the help of developer Anna Peng and tech wizard Jeff MacInnes.  As is often the case with fairly complex on-site interactive installations some of the software development was done literally in the exhibit space so we could tailor everything to be as natural feeling as possible to our audience of enthusiastic young data scientists.