MuseoGo: making museums learning effective and engaging
An mobile app facilitating learning for children at museums by integrating human-AI collaboration. Gained 95% user satisfaction and presented at two conferences.
Museums have great potential for fostering curiosity and learning, but traditional visits often lead to passive experiences and missed opportunities for deeper engagement. MuseoGo addresses these gaps by offering an AI-driven, three-phase support system: personalized pre-visit itineraries, an interactive on-site chatbot, and post-visit reflection tools like exit tickets and summary songs.
Before visit: personal itinerary plan
During visit: real-time interact chatbot
After visit: exit ticket and review
Quantitative Results
95% user satisfaction rate
26% increase in task completion after design iterations
Qualitative Wins
“Encouraging multifaceted learning which is really beneficial to students!”
“Kids sharing what they’ve learned and what interests them - and connecting with like-minded peers”
Industry Recognition
Featured at ASU+GSV Summit AI Show 2025
Finalist at HCII Student Design Competition 2025
Presented at ASU + GSV Summit @ AI Show 2025
Picture this: A family enters a world-class museum. Within 30 minutes, the kids are bored, parents are frustrated, and everyone's ready to leave. Sound familiar?
Despite museums investing $2 billion annually in educational resources, the average engagement rate hovers at just 46%. We discovered a startling disconnect: while museums offer incredible learning opportunities, families struggle to access and utilize them effectively.
This led us to ask: Why is engagement so low, and how might we make museum visits more interactive and effective for children?
Through interviews with 6 families and 2 museum educators, we uncovered three critical moments where learning breaks down:
"Managing my kids in a large museum can be stressful. Sometimes I have to read everything to them. I wish there were tools that keep them excited and learning on their own."
"I don’t know where to start, Sometimes I don’t understand what the exhibits is about. It is too hard for me. After a while, I became boring."
Museum Educator
"The most difficult part of our work is to keep children’s attention for a long time. They are easily distracted. And they forget most of knowledge after they leave the museum.”
From these conversations, we identified key pain points across the entire journey: before, during, and after the visit.
Pre-Visit: Families arrive unprepared, overwhelmed by choices
During Visit: Children become passive observers, not active learner.
After Visit: The experience ends at the exit—no reflection, no continued exploration
Our proposed solution was to create a personal museum guide for children — a tool that supports them before, during, and after their visit, keeping curiosity alive at every stage.
Information architecture (before the visit)
Core features include:
Personalized itinerary based on interests
Podcasts to introduce exhibits in a fun, simple way
Real-time Q&A, quizzes, and activities for active engagement
Exit tickets, custom songs, and recommended resources to extend learning beyond the museum
We shifted from an iPad prototype to a mobile-first design for greater accessibility
At the center is Museo, a playful character designed to grab children’s attention and guide them through their journey.
AI Character - Museo
Design System
To bring our concept to life, I built the design system from the ground up.
I chose a bright orange as the primary color to convey energy and excitement, and paired it with Poppins, a rounded sans-serif font that feels playful and approachable — both tailored to children’s preferences.
Typography and Color
Alongside the visual identity, I created a component library including buttons, cards, input fields, and more. These reusable components ensured a consistent brand identity while also boosting design and development efficiency.
Component Library
Design Decisions That Made a Difference
We conducted two rounds of usability testing, gathering feedback from users and iteratively refining the prototypes to improve clarity, engagement, and overall usability.
Conducting Usability Testing
Form Design
I streamlined the form experience by breaking it into step-by-step sections to reduce cognitive load, adding progress indicators to keep users aware of their status, making optional questions to lower the entry barrier, and including a final review page to prevent errors before submission.
Form Design
AI-generated Itinerary Design
The itinerary design went through three key iterations: Version 1 was text-heavy and overwhelming; Version 2 simplified the layout with step-by-step tasks but lacked clear directional guidance; and Version 3 introduced navigation icons, time estimates, and directions, transforming the experience into a clear, guided, and engaging journey for children.
AI-generated Itinerary Iterations
Accessibility Consideration
To ensure inclusivity, we designed alternative options for AI guides to better support young children, used an age-appropriate tone to make interactions more relatable, and added multilingual support to serve the diverse U.S. population.
Text and Voice Input Options & Multilingual Options
Aesthetic & Minimalist Design
For the Exit Ticket, I transformed a physical-like format into a digitally friendly timeline, maintaining a clean and minimalist aesthetic that makes reflection simple, engaging, and visually clear.
Exit Ticket Redesign
We reimagined the entire museum journey through the lens of a child's curiosity:
Pre-Visit: Building Excitement
AI-Powered Planning: Families answer a few fun questions about interests and learning styles.
Personalized Itinerary: The AI creates a custom adventure path through the museum.
Preview Podcast: Kids listen to an engaging story about what they'll discover.
Pre-Visit Features
During Visit: Active Exploration
AI Knowledge Buddy: Children can ask any question and get age-appropriate answers
Interactive Challenges: Location-based quizzes and collaborative family activities
Voice Input: Kids can speak naturally to their AI companion, removing reading barriers
During Visit Features
After Visit: Extending the Journey
Digital Exit Ticket: A personalized recap of their adventure
AI-Generated Review Song: Their learnings transformed into a catchy tune
Curated Resources: Follow-up activities and content based on what sparked their interest
After Visit Features
Designing AI with humanity – To make the experience feel more like a friendship than a chatbot, we gave Museo a warm personality: greeting children at the start, accompanying them throughout the journey, and even “writing” a personalized song as a gift to review what they learned.
Defining the right audience – Initially, the app was aimed at parents. But research revealed that parents often see museums as playtime rather than structured learning. We pivoted quickly to focus on children as the primary users, giving them a learning companion in Museo.
Growing technical skills – Along the way, I learned AI prompt engineering and explored generative AI, which not only informed more realistic design decisions but also strengthened collaboration with engineers by grounding ideas in technical feasibility.
