Case Study: Usability Testing
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Centralis and The Field Museum joined forces to bring history to life for visitors.
The Challenge
Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, a world-renowned institution founded in 1894, developed the Mobile Tours app to serve as a digital guide, deepening visitors’ engagement with the exhibits and providing personalized tours of the museum’s collection.
The museum partnered with Centralis to evaluate the usability of the app and its fit with visitor expectations and desires. Our goal was to assess the extent to which the app enhanced the in-gallery experience, and to eliminate barriers that might discourage users from engaging with the app during their visit.
The Process
The Centralis team moderated in-gallery usability testing of the Mobile Tours app, observing participants as they used the app in the context of a visit to the museum. We began with a brief warm-up interview, asking participants about their prior experiences at the Field and other museums.
Next, we gave each participant a mobile device with a tiny camera attached, to capture visitors’ hand movements and what they saw on their screens. Visitors completed a series of scenarios designed to test comprehension and usability of critical areas of the app. As participants used the app to explore the museum, our facilitators asked targeted questions to elicit more insight about their experiences.
The Impact
Our testing found that visitors were excited about the promise of the Mobile Tours app but uncovered usability issues that led them to discontinue the digital tour. For example, many visitors did not realize the tour’s potential because they could not find all the available content. Additionally, the tours did not follow a logical spatial progression forcing patrons to exert more effort in wayfinding. These issues dampened people’s initial enthusiasm for using the app throughout their visit.
Our findings provided The Field Museum with guidelines and best practices for ensuring future mobile offerings are easy and pleasurable to use while encapsulating the spirit of joy and discovery that is core to the museum’s mission.
Our Value
Walking the gallery halls with museum guests as they used the app, we could observe how visitors use mobile tours “in the wild.” With our recommendations, we removed the “rope barriers” so visitors could interact with The Field Museum’s extensive physical collection in a new and intimate way.
Centralis’ usability testing provided The Field Museum with the user feedback they needed to unlock people’s curiosity about the exhibits and use technology to connect them more deeply to our shared history.
- Exhibitions Development Director, The Field Museum