Sophia Rowen- User-centered design, cognitive overload, and immediate apprehendability

Our exercise the other class was centered around identifying different exhibits at MOXI that are strictly observational and using the matrix to come up with levels of engagement for those exhibits. Personally, I felt like this was going to be challenging because exhibits like the color wheel or the donor wall are often passively engaged with. After careful observation, I realized that there was much more to the Donor Wall that meets the eye. While reading “Designs for Learning,” I realized a connection between this exercise and the exhibits at the Exploratorium. Sue Allen states, “Interestingly, some of the Exploratorium’s most attractive and sustaining exhibits in recent years have used little or no physical interactivity at all” (25). This quote suggests that there is not one successful model for an interactive exhibit, and the power of interactive experiences should be challenged by exploring alternative ways of creating interactive exhibits. I like the terms “minds-on” and “hands-on” that are used in the article. I would use these terms to describe the Donor Wall. Since I have chosen this exhibit for my final project I have been giving it a lot of thought. This article is helpful for stimulating ideas for this project in many ways. For example, I have become more aware that the Donor Wall can elicit many self-generated explorations by the visitor than the more traditional exhibits that may have a higher degree of interactivity. This is because of another interesting point raised in the article- cognitive overload. Cognitive overload is defined in the context of this article as a guest having no sense of direction in terms of what is to be learned from an exhibit, and this is combined with having to translate the meaning of the exhibit to their child. All of this contributes to the phenomenon known as “museum fatigue” which Allen defines as a state in which visitors can only engage deeply with exhibits for thirty minutes (20). 

Allen mentions simple designs that are user-centered and states that “when affordances are taken advantage of, the user know what to do just by looking: no picture, label or instruction is required” (21). This quote can be extended to majority of the exhibits at MOXI. At MOXI, there is little signage, and this doesn’t take away from the visitor’s overall experience or engagement because the exhibits are designed in a way that is user friendly. This “user-centered design” is one way that you can reduce cognitive load in exhibits. 

The concept of “immediate apprehendability” is a primary focus in this article. I have never heard this term before and was concerned about the meaning of it. I thought that the way it is described is more forced that realistic. For example, Allen states that immediate apprehendability is “the quality of a stimulus or larger environment such that people introduced to it for the first time will understand its purpose, scope, and properties almost immediately and without conscious effort” (20). I tried to understand this concept by picturing the levels of engagement matrix. Rarely do guests walk up to an exhibit and immediately become aware of the purpose of the exhibit, its overall intent, and the engineering properties behind it. This would in fact defeat all purpose of sustained involvement by visitors. I thought this was interesting and would need to give it a little more thought. 

Lastly, I liked how the article concluded with acknowledging that there is still much to learn about the effects of immediate apprehendability, physical interactivity, conceptual coherence and diversity of learning modes. This is comforting to know that we still need to discover what works and what doesn’t work which is an opportunity given to us through the MAPS program.