Collaborative UX & Interaction Design · Concept & prototype · 2026
Plan a museum route around what you want to see.
Using the British Museum as our research setting, PathMuse explores how visitors could collect exhibitions and objects, form a personal route, find guidance through physical touchpoints, and keep a record of their visit.
My contribution
I proposed the “Shopping Cart for Culture” concept, refined the spatial map layers used for route design, and designed, built and iterated physical touchpoint prototypes.
I also contributed to the early visual direction, with elements of my early design work carried through into the team’s interface. For the concept film, I wrote the script, developed the storyboard and produced the section introducing the museum context, the wayfinding problem and the PathMuse concept.
The film connects the visit through interface and scenario demonstrations, with selected reference footage.
Where does finding a gallery stop being enough?
Museum observation, visitor shadowing tasks, map and signage analysis, six interviews with visitors unfamiliar with the museum, and workshop synthesis.
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In the Egyptian Cat search task, an online location reference did not lead to the expected object. Gallery-level directions left the specific display uncertain.
Design response: make selected objects and gallery references visible within the route.
Shadowing recorded hesitation where room-number signs were discontinuous or hard to see. Interviews also raised the need for more maps and clearer cues.
Design response: combine digital guidance with recognisable landmarks and known touchpoints.
Interviews described different visit priorities, language needs and time constraints.
Design response: let visitors collect what they want to see; the visit record is my concept response to remembering that journey.
Shadowing tasks included finding an Egyptian Cat object and a restroom.
Turn a list of things to see into a journey worth keeping.
I proposed “Shopping Cart for Culture”: visitors collect exhibitions and objects they want to see, then turn the list into a personal route. At the end, they review their exploration and photographs.
Team interface prototype
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Add galleries of interest to the visit list, then generate a personal route.
The map links the starting point, selected gallery and landmark cues.
The arrival cue brings together gallery identification, more information, photography and the next stop.
Give the route an editable spatial foundation.
Drawing on the public floor plan and location references, I created a more detailed, editable spatial layer showing gallery areas and approximate display-case positions. The team then used this version as the basis for further map updates, route design and gallery-highlighting exploration.
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The team compared the same gallery colour, a darker tone from the same colour family, and neutral black. I supported the comparison by examining whether the route remained distinguishable while relating to the selected exhibition.
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Feedback from this exploratory comparison favoured the darker shade within the gallery’s colour family. It retained the link to the gallery while making the route easier to distinguish. This informed further design exploration rather than validating a general result.
One participant compared A (darker shade), B (same gallery colour) and C (neutral black), then followed a simulated route on campus on 17 April 2026.
How can a visitor connect a screen direction with the place in front of them?
The interface uses cat imagery to identify the Egyptian gallery, while the physical touchpoint explores a related form as an on-site cue.
I used the Moai form to develop a slim NFC marker, exploring a recognisable physical cue at a known location.
01 / ESP32
A deeper enclosure accommodates the board and access points to explore relative proximity and distance feedback.
02 / NFC
A thin NFC tag can sit behind the marker. Tapping a known point explores location confirmation and a connection to gallery information.
I moved from a complete cat figure to a flatter cat-head enclosure. This reduced size and material use while leaving room for the board, USB access and wall thickness.
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The PLA prints provide physical evidence of form and board fitting. On-site recognition, material durability and public mounting conditions still need testing.
What the evidence supports, and what comes next.
For me, the key lesson was to make each part of the journey legible: what to choose, where to go, how to recognise the place, and what to remember afterwards. The next step is to test these parts together through real visitor tasks.
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