A touch table experience for the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas in partnership with the IF/THEN Project to introduce inspiring women with STEM careers to young Girl Scouts.
UX Designer for
The Virtual Wild Agency
Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas
& IF/THEN
September 2021
UX, Motion Design, Interaction Design, Touch Table
A regional branch of the Girl Scouts, an organization with a long history of helping girls and young women build confidence and skills to become leaders in their communities.
IF/THEN supports women innovators in STEM careers by offering grants and avenues for storytelling, empowering them to serve as exemplary STEM role models.
Image from The Girl Scouts of America
The Virtual Wild (TVW) was contacted by Girl Scouts of North East Texas (GSNETX) to build a gamified educational experience for girl scouts from ages 6-16 to learn about careers in STEM. The experience would showcase IF/THEN® Ambassadors- female leaders in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.
GSNETX and Lyda Hill want to inspire these young girls to dream big: IF you can see it, THEN you can be it.
The project is a multi-touch table and mounted viewing screen, with a collection of 3D-printed statues of the Ambassadors that activate their own content.
Choose 10 STEM ambassadors from the IF/THEN project to leverage their approved interview content and photoshoots.
Craft an engaging experience to capture the attention of girls (individual or in groups) aged 6-16, drawing inspiration from gaming elements.
Choose a resilient touch table that's suitable in height and depth for young girls, with the added advantage of easy mobility for events and exhibitions.
By using an interactive table with a corresponding viewing screen mounted above, we can include individuals or entire groups in the activities.
Interactive touch tables enhance user experiences by placing information, entertainment, advertising, and self-service options literally at your fingertips.
We chose one local ambassador to guide the experience, brought to life as a hologram, adding a modern and engaging dimension to the interaction.
We featured the ambassadors as 3D-printed objects, each unveiling personalized content, including interactive image cards, videos, and biographies.
We incorporated Remi, a robot we designed for another GSNETX project, into a quiz that tailors her career and appearance based on the user's selections.
The Virtual Wild started this project by connecting with stakeholders from Girl Scouts to decide how to showcase the IF/THEN® Ambassadors in a way that would be fun and exciting for young girls.
It was decided that the educational tool would be a touch-table linked to a mounted viewing screen, using small statues to open content about the Ambassadors on the screens.
Image from PerotMuseum.org
I had never worked with touch screens at such a large scale before this project, so I researched touch zones and best practices for interactive touch tables. The Perot Museum in Dallas has a few similar tables specifically for children, so I was able to do observatory research in person.
• Touch zones near the bottom left, center, and right edges of the table (for smaller sized users)
• Large touch areas
• Multi-object recognition
• Buffer time delays for accidental knock overs
• Touch trails for delight
The initial focus of our design process was the physical structure. We opted for a 55” touch table with object recognition capabilities, specifically tailored to 12-inch-tall 3D-printed statues of the Ambassadors. Additionally, a 65” viewing screen was selected for mounting above the table.
I drafted several concept ideas for accommodation of the statues and we settled on a mounted shelf as the most suitable choice. Considering the average height of the girl scouts, we needed to hang the shelf low enough to ensure easy access for the girls to access the statues.
To convey the flow and interactions to stakeholders, I developed an experience storyboard. The displayed screens are low-fidelity mockups designed primarily to convey broad conceptual ideas.
1. Welcome/idle screen
2. Introduction video
3. Tutorial animation
4. “See It” exploration phase (object is in place)
5. “Be It” game phase (object is in place)
6. Start over
In a prior collaboration with GSNETX, TVW introduced a digital robot character named Remi to assist scouts in navigating their virtual experience. For this current project, we've chosen to employ Remi once again, guiding the scouts through the interactive touch-table activities. The concept involves orchestrating Remi's movement across the screens, effectively directing attention to areas requiring action.
Here are two wireframes of specific places I wanted to use Remi as a helper:
We saw an exciting opportunity to integrate Remi into a game feature, specifically a "find your career" quiz, where Remi's outfits and careers dynamically evolve in response to the scouts' answers.
To bring this concept to life, I mapped out a comprehensive decision tree, ensuring that each branching pathway corresponded with a unique set of outfits or accessories that would change as the scouts' responses evolved.
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I designed wireframes encompassing the entire experience, enabling the developer to initiate the back-end work and allowing the visual designer to kickstart the interface design process.
After GSNETX made their selection of Ambassadors, we dedicated time to gather profiles, images, videos, and fun facts about these Ambassadors, all sourced from the IF/THEN® collection database.
The object-recognition feature is the highlight of our table experience. After going through an introductory video, Remi instructs the scouts to pick a statue and place it on a designated spot on the table (at the back corner, to try and prevent accidental knock-overs).
Once a statue is placed, the ambassador’s content will open up on the table and viewing screen:
• Videos: main video begins to play when all content has opened up
• Images: table image cards can be moved, resized, or flipped over
• Profiles: information, location, and fun facts about the ambassador
• Badges: selected badges that the ambassador may have earned as a scout
When a statue is removed, there’s a brief delay in case the scouts are swapping to another statue. If there’s no action after the delay the experience will go back to the initial idle screen.
The UI designer and I collaborated closely to design this experience, making sure that every transition was cohesive, flawlessly smooth and that the content would be captivating for girl scouts.
In the wireframe stages, the developer and I communicated often to make sure design vision aligned with what he was building. I created a low-fidelity prototype to communicate interaction design and motion of Remi and the overall flow of the screens.
Unfortunately, a manufacturing delay attributed to the challenges posed by the COVID era resulted in a lengthy wait for the delivery of the touch table.
During this interim period, I was presented with an opportunity outside of The Virtual Wild, compelling me to redirect my focus which prevented me from conducting post-build testing on this project.
However, I am super excited to report that the experience is now fully operational and installed at the Girl Scouts STEM Center of Excellence in Dallas, where it has received excellent feedback from both stakeholders and the media.
"The installation perfectly aligns with our mission to introduce our girls to educational and professional opportunities available in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields."
As a former Girl Scout and a woman in STEM, this project holds a special place in my heart. Participating in this project was a uniquely rewarding experience.
Our thorough research and design process resulted in an Ambassador Experience that genuinely inspires Girl Scouts. I feel deeply privileged to have played a part in illuminating a realm of opportunities these young girls might not have otherwise encountered.
Learn more about IF/THEN
Go to the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas's website
Check out The Virtual Wild's case study
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