AppGuide+ is the new app for exhibitions and museums promoted by Giunti Arte Mostre Musei. It serves as an augmented audioguide and enables a rich set of new experiences.
This project is the culmination of my activity as Head of Design and User Experience for Enjoymuseum. It puts together all the work done on business design, design research and early prototyping. The first setting for AppGuide+ was Leonardiana in Vigevano: one of the most complete museums about Leonardo da Vinci’s reproductions, created by Migliore+Servetto Architects.
I took the first Enjoymuseum app prototype and redesigned it from the ground up to serve multiple exhibitions of Giunti Arte Mostre Musei. The project involved also creating supporting visual devices complementing the AppGuide+ experience: such as exhibition graphics, audioguide signage, informational and promotional material, all thought to blend with the existing exhibition design.
App and museum experience
Design goals and features
The UX/UI design pivots around three core objectives:
- Create continuity between physical and digital environment;
- Expand the museum experience in time and space;
- Create a flexible user experience able to adapt to different levels of users’ interest and engagement.
We implemented a color-neutral UI and a modular screen background system that matches rooms and artworks’ colors. For all the elements in the app, we developed previews and memories that let visitors engage with the exhibition before arriving at the museum and after having experienced it.
We designed a layered and automated app with different types of content on different navigation levels. In this way, the experience can naturally adapt to the level of interest of the user. Visitors who want minimal guidance throughout the exhibition can simply plug their earphones and leave their device in their pocket. Whoever wants a little more information can follow the artworks canvas and access quick curiosities on the paintings. On the other end, the deeply engaged users can access more audio content on the artworks and read descriptions and insights edited by the team of curators at Enjoymuseum.
Leonardiana museum in Vigevano
The first installation of the system was done in Leonardiana, the most complete museum about Leonardo da Vinci’s life and works. The space, designed by Migliore+Servetto Architects, presents a regular sequence of rooms and sections. When visitors enter each section, Appguide+ automatically loads the corresponding Room Overview (location-based technology).
Vertical graphics introduce each room and serve as visual guidance for the digital experience and reassure the user that what comes up on the display is exactly the right content for that point of the exhibition.
Vertical graphics accompany visually the room introduction screen on the app
Graphic and promotional material
Roll-ups, instruction panels and desktop displays promote the experience outside and inside the museum
App development & further utilizations
Other apps & installations developed on Leonardiana & AppGuide+
Divisionismo La rivoluzione della luce, dal 23 novembre sino al 5 aprile 2020 presso il Castello Visconteo Sforzesco di Novara.
Explorer, engineer, pioneer of modern archaeology, father of world Egyptology, he inspired George Lucas in the creation of Indiana Jones.
Magister is a format of cultural value created with the aim of promoting beauty through the enhancement of the Italian and international cultural and artistic heritage, revitalizing it in a contemporary key.
There is a story, linking Leonardo da Vinci’s affairs to the city of Milan. It is that of a vineyard, donated to Leonardo in 1498 by the Duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro, and hiding legends about the life, works and followers of the artist.
La Linea Gotica è un progetto tecnologico volto a valorizzare le vicende dei partigiani di Armando dopo la caduta della Zona Libera di Montefiorino.
The exhibition, conceived and created by Augusto Agosta Tota, Marzio Dall’Acqua and Vittorio Sgarbi, organized by the Antonio Ligabue Study Center and Archive of Parma.
Lombardies @Expo2015
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