Brief
The Penn State Arboretum opened a new pollinator garden and was looking for ways to draw in more guests and encourage them to learn about some of the hidden world in the insects. Hive Five works to draw in children from various grades (ages 6-11) to come to the arboretum for an interactive experience that allows the children to follow through the roles of the bee of their choice.
Skills
UX/UI, wayfinding, illustrations, and branding.
Deliverables
A map for navigation, bracelets for each bee journey with QR code, 3 different game play options, and fully branded experience.
Partner- Kimi Mate
Check out the buzz
How it works
It all starts at one of the two welcome kiosks! This is where users will pick up a map that tells them about each experience. From there they will decide which of the three types of bees they want to play as. For each bee journey there is a coinciding bracelet and color assigned. After picking their journey they will scan their bracelet at the welcome kiosk and customize the experience to themselves and get some onboarding on how the game works. From there they will go from kiosk to kiosk completing tasks and playing different games and collecting points to get on the scoreboard at the end.
It all starts at one of the two welcome kiosks! This is where users will pick up a map that tells them about each experience. From there they will decide which of the three types of bees they want to play as. For each bee journey there is a coinciding bracelet and color assigned. After picking their journey they will scan their bracelet at the welcome kiosk and customize the experience to themselves and get some onboarding on how the game works. From there they will go from kiosk to kiosk completing tasks and playing different games and collecting points to get on the scoreboard at the end.
Navigating to Kiosks
Navigation was very important for continuing with the chosen bee path, but also it had to be easily understood by children. The solution was in color coding the different bee journeys and creating a path in the same color. Even if a child got distracted they could always find their path again and continue their journey. But just incase they still got lost they could look at their map and see where their bee’s color showed up.
User Testing
After testing the app with children there were some important changes to make it more user friendly. A lot of the language had to be simplified and there was a miscalculation to how well children could read at such a young age that needed to be accounted for. A listening function was added for those who could not read as well or at all and more visuals were added to help children know what certain differences were.
Branding
The branding of this experience consists of eight key colors that are used to make blobs and dot patterns. Our illustration style broke away from these colors, but still maintained the dot pattern.
The branding of this experience consists of eight key colors that are used to make blobs and dot patterns. Our illustration style broke away from these colors, but still maintained the dot pattern.
Illustration Style
The illustration pattern was inspired by pop art.
