Observations

We began our research with 5 days of guest observations, where we passively studied guests’ behaviors in the dolphin show atrium.

Interviews

We then conducted 14 in-person interviews with guests, floor staff members, and managers to unpack the waiting experience more granularly.

Key findings

Our research revealed that the dolphin atrium was dull and confusing compared to the aquarium’s other spectacular exhibits. To remedy that, we developed the following opportunity statements as guides for our concepting:

• Helping guests navigate the dolphin area

• Warming up guests for the live dolphin performance

• Teaching guests more about the aquarium’s dolphins

• Providing guests with alternative plans when they can’t access the show

Participatory design session

To kick off our design phase, we invited 5 stakeholders from the aquarium to brainstorm ideas based on our researched pain points and opportunity areas.

Paper prototypes

We riffed on our stakeholders’ concepts by creating simple prototypes to test out the interactions.

Our conclusion was that a gesture-based installation had a high potential for entertaining guests without requiring too much hardware.

Storyboarding

The final concept allowed guests to play with digital dolphins by physically mimicking different sea creatures.

As guests struck a pose, the dolphins would echolocate to interpret their gestures and respond accordingly.

Gestural study

We asked some friends to try mimicking different creatures to learn which gestures would work best for our recognition model.

Ultimately, we chose to include the six creatures that our testers mimicked most consistently: a crab, diver, fish, octopus, shark, and kelp cluster.

Technical spikes

Using the results of the gestural study, I built this quick prototype to test our poses with Microsoft Kinect’s gesture recognition engine.

Unity demo

Through constant iteration and spectacular visual design support—thanks Rex!—I built out a feature-complete demo of the installation in the Unity engine.

COVID-19 impact 🦠

This installation was originally intended to be assembled in the aquarium for live testing with guests. However, due to the global pandemic we pivoted to a remote evaluation plan where testers reviewed video footage of the demo.

Stakeholder evalutations

We asked 4 aquarium stakeholders to complete a survey about the how the installation addressed the project’s goals. Overall they were pleased with its educational value and encouraged us to pursue more long-term interactions.

Expert evaluations

We also reached out to 5 experts in the physical interaction industry to collect feedback on the installation’s design. This was structured around UX heuristics published by the Nielsen-Norman group and video game journals.

How to play

Step right up

Once a player approaches the installation, they’re greeted by a dolphin companion and a bubblized version of themselves.

Strike a pose

Players then must discover a hidden gesture corresponding to one of the six creatures shown onscreen (left). Once they do, the dolphin will start to identify them.

Transform!

If the player holds a creature pose, they’ll transform into that creature in a flurry of bubbles and see facts about how that creature interacts with dolphins in the wild.