Exhibit plus was developed from a need that we found in the community of Teachers College students. Students were eager to attend museums, but felt overwhelmed by the options available in New York and were not compelled to use the current sites made available at Columbia University for these searching functions. Potential problems on current platforms include: comprehensive details about museums organized in a complicated fashion, little to no user-generated data and no medium was available for online social communication between interested students. Students desired to have a platform that presented current exhibitions in a way that was simple to navigate, presented exhibitions in an engaging and innovative fashion and allowed for students to interact by commenting on or liking specific exhibitions or inviting others to join them on an excursion.

Exhibit plus presents museum exhibitions through a user-generated card model. One “exhibition card” is shown at a time with an attractive and eye-catching photograph and users can view the exhibitions according to their interests or by browsing all of the current cards. Users can interact with cards through two main functions: “reviewing” and “taking action”. “Reviewing” functions enable users to like, comment and seek further information. “Taking action” functions enable users to invite friends to join them on a museum visit, create an exhibition card, edit it if necessary and ask for help.

The hope was that by developing this app, students would not only be more interested in going to museums, but could also dive deeper into what they learnt or discovered from various exhibits. This site also has potential to become useful for museum educators and teachers who are looking to create learning experiences for their students and a platform for them to discuss their ideas and collaborate on projects relating to exhibitions.

Try out the Museum App for yourself: Exhibit+ Museum Education App

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Design Document with needs assessment, prototyping, user-testing.docx

Design Document.pdf