Nala’s Maze Adventure
Our team worked with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to design Nala’s Maze Adventure, a two-player exhibit that promotes social-emotional learning through collaborative problem-solving.
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Timeline
Jan 2024 - April 2024
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Type
UX Research, Learning Design, Exhibit Design
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Tools
Conversational Study, Visitor Engagement Framework, Usability Testing, Affinity Diagramming, Laser Cutting
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Team
Siyun Wen, Joanne Yang
Instructor: Marti Louw
Background
In this project, we collaborated with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to create and test a novel pop-up exhibit experience to further socio-emotional learning in a museum setting.
The result was Nala’s Maze Adventure: an exhibit aimed at fostering empathy and collaboration. In this experience, visitors work together to guide Nala the dog through a maze to visit her sick friend Scotty. However, the person controlling Nala can’t see the maze and must rely on their partner’s directions, encouraging teamwork and effective communication.
Defining Our Scope
Since socio-emotional learning (SEL) is a broad topic, we decided to focus on the topics of social awareness and relationship skills as defined in the CASEL framework.
In particular, we were interested in exploring the idea of empathy. Research around the Theory of Mind suggests that young children have trouble comprehending that others have mental states, beliefs, and understandings different from their own until the age of 4 or 5 (Davis-Unger & Carlson, 2008; Cao et al., 2023). Since many visitors to the Children’s Museum are at the age of developing empathy skills, we wanted to explore how a developmentally-appropriate exhibit could foster this growth.
User Research: Conversational Study
Before jumping in to designing the exhibit, we conducted a conversational study to learn how CMoP visitors resonate with the concept of empathy.
Step 1: Personal Meaning Mapping
We asked participants to write or draw anything that came to mind regarding the word ‘empathy’.
Step 2: Follow-Up interview
Then, we conducted a 5 minute follow-up interview and asked these questions:
Can you briefly describe your mind map?
What does empathy mean to you?
In the last week, what’s an example of empathy you witnessed?
How would you talk about being empathetic with your child(ren)?
a few mind maps from the conversational study
Insights
The 12 participants we interviewed helped us gain a better understanding of how visitors at CMoP view the concept of empathy.
Here are a few of our major takeaways that informed our next round of ideation:
Do not explicitly use the word empathy
While adults and children are familiar with the concept of empathy, the term itself does not resonate with either adults or children.
“It’s not about using the term, but when we see them share things with each other”
“Empathy doesn’t come up directly, it comes up indirectly through actions.”
Emphasize understanding others
Parents often explained empathy to their children as ‘understanding’ others.
“Put yourself in their shoes”
“How would you feel if that happened to you”
Frame empathy in a positive context
Empathy is often associated with negative scenarios. Given that visitors come to the Children’s Museum for fun, we should avoid incorporating overly negative contexts for empathy.
Negative Scenarios Mentioned: loss, stress, discipline
Idea Generation
Using our conversational study findings as inspiration, we brainstormed a few possible exhibit ideas. After consulting with CMoP stakeholders, we decided to move forward with the idea of Nala’s Maze Adventure:
SEL Goals
Player Goals
Relationship Skills, Social Awareness
Fostering a collaborative environment that encourages children to engage in conversations with each other or their parents to achieve shared goals and develop empathy through Nala's story.
Storyboard
Two people stand on opposite sides of the exhibit
One person sees the maze and verbally guides the other person through the maze
The other person follows the directions given to them
Both people work together to bring Nala to the end of the maze
Experience Map
To help us develop our ideal visitor interactions, we developed an experience map describing how the two players (maze guide and magnet mover) would collaborate to bring Nala through the maze.
Evaluation Study #1
Our first step was to develop a low-fidelity prototype to quickly assess whether our exhibit design effectively encouraged visitors to engage with the intended learning objectives and if they understood how to interact with the exhibit.
For our low-fidelity prototype, we used a 10x10 wooden board to construct the base of the maze, supplemented by wooden popsicle sticks to form the maze's pathways.
To evaluate our prototype, we conducted a 2 hour testing session at the Children’s Museum. In total, we observed 11 groups using our exhibit:
The average time spent on the activity per round is approximately 5 minutes
Out of 11 groups, 8 successfully completed the activity
The average age of participating children was approximately 6 years old
Here are our main findings:
Strong SEL Engagement
Many groups demonstrated positive teamwork and relationship skills, such as saying ‘Good job’ and sharing a high five. If an error occurred, both both adults and children would apologize and acknowledge their mistake (ex: “I’m sorry, that was my mistake”).
Lack of Perspective Taking
When adults and children played the maze together, they often adopted the child’s perspective to simplify the experience. Unfortunately, this approach limited the children's opportunities to practice considering others' viewpoints.
Difficult for Children <5
The exhibit proved challenging for most children under the age of 5. They had difficulty understanding their role, solving the maze, and moving the magnet in a controlled manner.
Updating Our Exhibit
Having tested our concept, we began to create a more durable prototype. These are the key changes we've implemented
Exhibit Size
To make the exhibit even more unique and exciting, we decided to create a larger maze. We increased its size from 10 x 10 inches to approximately 22 x 15 inches.
Magnet Affordance
To make the mover side magnet’s affordance more intuitive, we replaced the stick from the initial prototype with a small handle. The size and shape of the handle helps make it easier for visitors to grab.
Care Cards
To enrich the care item pickup experience, we designed and printed out physical cards with care items on them. Every time players reach a care item on the maze, they will get a card with respective care items on it.
Evaluation Study #2
We conducted a second evaluation study at the Children’s Museum with the aim of identifying usability issues, assessing the prototype’s accessibility and durability, and evaluating the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) goals, such as practicing teamwork and considering others' perspectives. We gathered data through three main methods:
Semi-Structured Observation
To structure our analysis, we utilized an observation sheet for each group to document details such as group size, roles, duration, mistakes made, etc.
Visitor Engagement Profile (VEP)
We developed a codebook that identifies behaviors associated with different levels of engagement, from initiation to transition and breakthrough.
Exit Interview
To shed light on participants’ experience, we came up with a set of exit interview questions. This helps supplement our observational notes.
Findings
During the three-hour session, we observed 9 groups interact with the exhibit. Most groups completed only one round of the maze instead of switching sides and attempting it again. Occasionally, a third person, such as another parent or sibling, would step in as an observer and take on the role of a coach, helping to facilitate communication between the guide and the mover.
This diagram provides a quick overview of how our 9 groups approached the exhibit:
In our Visitor Engaging Profiling (VEP) codebook, we defined and tracked three key behavior categories of increasing engagement: initiation, transition and breakthrough:
Initiation behaviors encompass actions like starting the activity or observing others.
Transition behaviors involve adapting strategies, demonstrating positive emotional responses, and intentionally seeking out the care items.
Breakthrough behaviors include repeating the activity and children adopting their partner’s perspective.
The exceptionally high rates of transition behaviors (100%) and breakthrough behaviors (66.7%) underscore the exhibit's strong influence on visitors' engaging in our desired social-emotional learning concepts.
How do visitors usually provide directions to their partner?
A key aspect of Nala’s Maze Adventure involves directing your partner to move left or right, which can be particularly challenging for children who are still mastering the concepts of 'left' and 'right.' Since users stand on opposite sides of the exhibit, the directions are reversed, thus adding an extra layer of difficulty.
Here are a few of the main ways our visitors approached this challenge:
Saying ‘Left’ and ‘Right’
6 groups opted to verbally use the terms ‘left’ and ‘right,’ often choosing to use the child’s perspective
“You have to use my left” - Mom “No, my left!” - Daughter
Using Hand Gestures
2 groups chose to point in the direction they wanted their partner to move. We suspect not many groups chose to use hand gestures since it was difficult to see their partner over the large board.
Using External Landmarks
Instead of using ‘left’ and ‘right,’ a few groups used external landmarks positioned on either side of the exhibit to guide their partner’s direction.
“Go towards Mama”
“Towards the sand thing”
How do visitors reflect after the exhibit?
A successful exhibit often inspires visitors to reflect on and discuss their experience. In this case, every player group celebrated their performance with phrases like “We did it” or “Great work,” and by giving high-fives. Some participants went further, reflecting on their behavior after the game. For instance, one mother remarked to her daughter, “I wasn’t very patient, was I?” - setting a valuable example of self-awareness.
SEL Conversations & Behaviors
The exhibit successfully facilitated Social Emotional Learning (SEL) among participants, with key findings highlighting enhanced empathy, positivity, acceptance of mistakes, emotional management, curiosity, and teamwork. Here are some examples for each category:
Recommendations and Next Steps
Based on our evaluation study findings, we identified several areas for improvement and recommended next steps for the Children’s Museum to consider as they move forward. The observation that few participants engaged deeply with our game's narrative during play leads us to consider simplifying the narrative or incorporating more visual storytelling enhancements. Since we facilitated the interactions of most groups, we could help them reset the magnets at the beginning of the maze - but they should consider how to automatically reset the maze.
A particularly surprising discovery was that a larger exhibit doesn't always translate to a better experience. Our initial prototype (10x10 inches) allowed visitors to easily see and interact with each other. However, our final prototype (22x15 inches) was about three times larger and created a more isolating experience. The increased size hindered visibility between participants and made it difficult for them to hear each other over the large board, especially in the noisy environment of the Children’s Museum. We recommend adjusting the exhibit’s size and shape to ensure that participants can see each other while navigating the maze. Or, to keep the same larger size, we could incorporate cutouts or windows in the maze board to maintain visual connection among users.