Vivaarium phase I
Also, a successful show with about 1000 visitors!
Vivaarium is an experiment trying to make sense of echo chambers - what they are, how they come to be, and what their effects on group behaviour can be.
Using my app, the audience shopped in the "humanity shop" buying items with metaphorical value (100L whiskey, the Bible, an anthology of Estonian female poets, scientific journals, guns, mirrors, jewellery, drawing supplies, etc), and answered quiz-type selection games.
Later, in the capsules, the audience was prompted by the actor to look at their phones and vote on in-capsule plot points.
Based on the "humanity values" of the items and their answers, the audience was divided into four groups and physically separated into capsules - based on their assumed political, ethical, and moral views. The questions we asked and answers statistics we received in the answers can be seen here.
UX insights
- With a range of users from age 7 to 74 (my grandma, but she wasn't the only one), a focus on very clear and simple shapes was essential. This resulted in a design that wasnt "pretty" in a UI design way, but was very clear, and usable without external help needed.
- In a situation like this, the user will not read the intro screen. No matter what you do. They just simply will not. It is not a reliable method anyway.
- Half the web apps out there (including ours, in the beginning) are unusable by users with truly small screens. We fixed it after the first audience test, but still.
They triggered tasks for the audience which affected the plot.
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