top of page
I con App.png

City Museum Chicago

UX Design  I  UI Design

Overview

Helping business travelers to do sightseeing the city Chicago effectively with a museum experience 

City museum Chicago app is a case study project designing for business travelers' need base in Chicago.  The team of four MS students worked on the user research and conceptualization processes together. After that, I continued developing the ideas and turned it to a prototype. I created all visuals including app logo design, icon design, low fidelity wireframes, and high fidelity prototypes. 
 
The Challenges
Understanding the processes on a UX within in a team. Defining a meaningful and mindful concept, target a specific audience  and understand the users' real need. 

My Role

UX Research & App Concept (Team) 
Wireframing & Prototyping (sole)

Toolkit

Photoshop, Illustrator, Balsamiq
Figma & After Effects

Time

Spring , 2020. (6 Weeks)
 
Problem & Solution

Problem

There are over 405 million business trips every year, making business travelers a significant portion of travelers. However, business travelers have unique needs when it comes to fun activities, including time and time of day constraints and a desire to see off-the-beaten-path places on repeat trips.

Solution

City Museum Chicago app turns the city Chicago into a museum by providing walking audio tours, taking travelers along routes based on the arts, architecture, quirky locations, and more.

Design Process

Design Process & Brainstorming
  • Affinity diagram. Brainstorming
  • User Research: Define target audience and their needs
  • User Flow: Understand  the path taken by a prototypical user on a website or app to complete a task
  • Wireframes & Prototyping: Designing the product 
  • User personas: Finding the users' need
  • User journey map: finding design opportunities 

Brainstorming

My First Board (3).jpg
From our workshop affinity diagram, we decided to start with business travelers as our audience who we can empathically connect to our own experiences. 

Research Findings

Research Findings
We have conducted 10 interviews from young professions age from 21-48. Through our research interviews and surveys. Here are the findings and insights of our participants. Reliance on map function on a smartphone. Need for information on location operating hours. Need for integration with transit​. Participants have time management constraint. Female participants have time constraints due to safety concern after late night in Chicago.
Interview Insights

“ I tend to not pack too many places at once for my personal trip, I’d explore each place slowly and enjoy my time there. For my business trip, I only have lunch time and evening, most likely I just find places nearby.”

“ I don’t know much about Chicago. I don’t even know where to explore. I wish there is app that has large data of historical feature about Chicago and it just recommend me where to go for sightseeing base on my hotel or event locations while I travel there. So I can explore while I work.”

“ Sometimes, my conference or business location is extremely far away from places I want to explore. I often ended up not getting chance to visit, then I felt my opportunity is wasted. I wish there is something interesting about Chicago on my way to business conferences.”

Corey, 35 I Science Researcher 
Michael, 24 I Executive Account Manager
Doris, 49 I  VP of Business Development
Survey Insights
Survey results with 18 participants in 3 days. Below is the demographic breakdown. Age from 21-35 are in their early to mid career stages. They are more likely will to use this app. All participants use such as Google Map, Trip adviser and etc. when they travel to new cities.
City Museum Chicago Data Visuals (3).jpg

Personas

Personas
I created a persona created for each age cohort represented in the interviews including generation  Y, and Z profiles. Here is the primary persona and secondary persona focused on Gen Z and Gen Y. Matt Shepard speaks for young male business traveler in generation Z. Lisa Smith represents female business traveler in generation Y. From the personas we learned generation  Y, and Z are very familiar with using smart phones. They use smart phones while they travel. The team made the decision to turn this idea into a phone app design instead of other digital products.  
1.png
2.png
User Experienc Map

Journey Map

The customer journey map was focused on Gen Z who is more willing explore as we studied from our personas. After we went through the journey, we analyzed some opportunities and insights where we can implements app features to best serve the business traveler users. 
Colorful Customer Journey Map Brainstorm (1).png
User Flow

User Flow

Mapping out a user flow allowed the team to visualize the experience that a typical user would be engaging in as they clicked through our app.  This helped us decide on what app screens we’d need to start crafting.low fidelity wireframes (include sketches). All of the team members contributed to this key design process step.  The checkpoint in our design path helped us move from discussion to the drawing board.
Sketches & Wireframes

Sketches & Wireframes

Concept App Sketches - Contributed by the team of four

Sketches.JPG

Wireframing based on the sketches by using Balsamiq tool - I worked on these independently

Initial Sign Up
Map
Sign-in
Preference & Setting
Style Guide

Style Guide

25 (3).png
Prototyping

Prototyping

26 (2).png

Final Design

1. 1st time user sign up process

Click play or stop for pause. There will be audio playing when the screen shows clicking the Preview button. Thank you!

2. After signed up. Set up the tour preferences

3. Return user just need to sign in with

simple steps

4. Finally, the fun part. Find a route base on the user's location or click preference or recommended route. Let's explore! 

Click play or stop for pause. There will be audio playing when the screen shows clicking the screen Play button. Thank you!

Final Mockups

Final Mockups
Final Mockups-2.png

Next Steps

I would like to add more content,  test the design with users to validate concept so far. Launch Beta/Pilot test to small group of users, gather some feedback and refine product. It's important to find out if the app’s flows and visual design resonate with users or not. I would also like to see where there are areas of improvement because continuous iterations are an integral part of the design process.

Check out more projects!