Creating inclusive digital exhibition guides for the Wellcome Collection
My role & Results
Jul-Aug 2024
Duration
Wellcome Collection
Company
Product Designer
Role
UX
UI
User Research
Project Management
Skills
Wellcome Collection is a London museum exploring health, art, and human experience.
It receives over 2 million visitors each year and provides digital guides with audio descriptions, British Sign Language, and transcripts to make exhibits engaging and accessible to all. However, these guides were outdated and had usability and accessibility issues.
As the product designer, I led a complete redesign of the Wellcome Collection's Digital Guides over four sprints to enhance their user experience and accessibility.
This resulted in a 300% increase in session duration (our KPI), raising the average from 2 → 6 minutes.
Updated Guide interface
Key results
2M
Wellcome Collection visitors in a year
Highest WCAG accessibility rating
3A
Increase in average listening time
3x
Challenge
How might we enhance the guides to support gallery visitors better while minimising device load?
We knew the users were not engaging with the guides properly: with 2 minutes on average, they weren’t interacting with more than 10% of the content Wellcome Collection had to offer.
With no UX researcher on the team, I took on the research role, compiling insights through HotJar tracking, old studies, and a competitive analysis.
Key insights
1.
Add visual cues for easier wayfinding
Users need visual representation of guide stops to easier navigate the exhibits.
2.
Make audio player UI accessible
The UI needs to consider accessibility in UI sizing, typography, colours&contrast.
3.
Improve navigation between guides
We need to allow users to easily choose their preferred guide type.
Ideation
I designed the guides iteratively, while working closely with the developers on my team to ensure their feasibility.
Below: early user flow diagram exploration
Design solution
The new guides address visitor pain points we set out to fix, while providing a sleek experience for users, both in the gallery and across the world.
Simple navigation
Indicate what type of aid you need and navigate the exhibit easily with your digital guide.
Listen to the fascinating voices of the artists and curators and read along.
New audio player experience with transcripts
UI updates
WC’s guides needed particular accessibility attention as they are used by a diverse group of users, including people with visual and hearing impairments.
Here are examples how I handled meeting the WCAG accessibility standards while designing the guides in order to ensure their accessibility for our broad audience.
