Mobile app walk through
SOLUTION
A mobile app that turns visitors’ phones into a way to connect with the animals. Visitors can scan an exhibit to meet the animal behind it, keep kids engaged with Kid Mode, and discover conservation work to join.
BEYOND THE GLASS
Company
New England Aquarium (NEAq)
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
8 Months
Figma · Audience Research · App Design Pitch · Gamified Design
OBJECTIVE
I set out to turn the New England Aquarium visitor experience from a passive visit into a personal one, helping families, curious learners, and conservation-minded visitors connect with the animals beyond the glass.
RESEARCH
I spent two months researching how people experience the New England Aquarium, through visitor interviews, role and goal mapping, and a comparative analysis of existing apps. I wanted to understand why people visit, how they engage with exhibits, and how technology fits into the experience.
Visitor Interviews
65 visitor participant data, 5 key participants are listed here
Key Quotes:
“It’s an amazing way to observe marine animals I’d otherwise never see outside of research.”
“It’s all about my kids! They get so excited seeing sea creatures in real life.”
“I love the experience of aquariums, how they use lighting, layout, and digital screens to create a whole new world.”
UI Explorations
10+ App explorations, 3 examples are shown here
The strongest responses came from conservation-minded participants, who saw emotional connection as a pathway to empathy and action. Others were more motivated by aesthetics, entertainment, or simply seeing animals up close.
3.8 / 5
Emotional connection score based on visitor interview rankings
Key insight
Rather than competing with visitors' phones, an aquarium experience could intentionally integrate the behaviors they are already doing.
Every participant described using their phone during a visit, but for different reasons:
Photography
Learning
Sharing
Planning/navigation
Pain Points
Crowds can diminish the experience.
Inactive animals create dead moments
Families struggle with navigation and engagement
Conservation activities are often buried
Information can feel too shallow
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The opportunity was to connect these fragmented behaviors into a single experience that could adapt to different visitors and make each animal feel more personal.
Who are we designing for?
Workflow 1
As a Visitor, I want to scan an animal exhibit so I can learn more about its backstory, personality, and conservation status.
Steps:
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User opens the app and sees a "Scan" button on the home screen.
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User points their phone's camera at an animal or exhibit plaque.
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The app detects the exhibit and begins processing.
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App loads the animal's profile with details like name, age, species, personality, backstory, conservation efforts, and images/videos.
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User explores additional content, such as feeding schedules, related species, or fun facts.
Completion Indicator: User successfully views the full animal profile and has the option to save it or share it.
Workflow 2
As a Parent, I want to engage my child with interactive activities so they can stay entertained and learn about marine life in a fun way.
Steps:
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User selects the "Kid Mode" option on the home screen, which provides interactive learning activities.
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App suggests a scavenger hunt or quiz based on the animals in the aquarium that day.
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Child completes tasks, such as spotting a specific animal, answering a question, or watching a feeding session.
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The app provides rewards, like digital stickers, fun animations, or achievement badges.
Completion Indicator: Child earns a digital reward, and the app suggests new activities to continue engagement.
Workflow 3
As a visitor who may or may not already follow marine conservation, I want to discover the aquarium's rescue and conservation work while I'm there, so I can learn what's happening and find easy ways to get involved.
The aquarium already shares conservation news on its website, but visitors usually have to go looking for it, and many don't know these efforts exist.
Steps:
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User comes across conservation content in the app, either through a highlight on the home screen or through the nav bar.
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App displays a feed of recent conservation stories, such as rescues, rehabilitations, and releases, alongside upcoming events like beach cleanups and volunteer programs. Also shows your history of events attended which you can gain points through.
Completion Indicator: A first-time learner reads a conservation story, or an advocate saves, signs up for an upcoming event.
HOME SCREEN DESIGN PROCESS
I dedicated three months to an iterative design. I began with sitemapping and wireframing, sketching out multiple variations of layouts and user flows to understand how visitors would naturally interact with the app.
This sitemap helped me understand high level functionality of the app.
Home Screen Brain Drawings
This is a quick look into a first draft of how I explored different home pages.
These sketches explore three navigation approaches: a central scan page with an expandable menu, a landing page with the three core functions as a simple nav, and an alternate button layout that adds a profile button for a more personal entry point.
Paper Wireframe Ideations: click arrows to see each functionality
Workflow 1: Scan
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Workflow 1: Scan
Change in Direction
Visitors told me plaques felt shallow and that quiet tanks left them losing interest, so I redesigned the home screen to spark curiosity right away, with an interactive way to discover the animals and where they come from before reaching an exhibit.
NEAq Website Drop down menu that I referenced
I sketched out more home screen ideas surrounding an interactive species map revealing where all the marine life in the aquarium came from
Digitally Drawn Wireframes
I chose A. History + map layout because it balanced the two things visitors needed most: a quick look at their own progress and a reason to explore. The other concepts favored one at the cost of the other, while this layout kept both on a single screen.
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
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HIGH FIDELITY HOME SCREEN
KID MODE USER TESTING
Through rounds of user testing, the main session that stood out was user testing for Kid Mode. I tested Kid Mode with five families, giving every task to the child. Younger kids didn't want to use the text-based menu on their own, and most never noticed the penguin-feeding reward, which showed the design was built for parents instead of kids.
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FINAL VALIDATION AND TESTING
Usability Testing Full App Walkthrough
20 participants
To see how the app worked from start to finish, I tested the complete prototype with 20 aquarium visitors: 8 parents with children, 7 adults visiting alone, and 5 visitors who described themselves as conservation-minded. Sessions were moderated, took place in person at the aquarium, and lasted about 30 minutes each. Participants used a Figma prototype on an iPhone
Key Findings
Scanners didn't know whether the camera was working (8 of 20). Participants held the phone up to the tank and waited, unsure whether anything had been recognized. "Is it doing anything?" Change: I added a live bounding box around the animal and instant feedback ("Looks like Sally, tap to see"). For animals that were hard to catch through the glass, I added options to take a photo or upload one.
Conservation stories felt like homework (7 of 20). Long articles in the Updates feed made participants skim past events they might have joined. "I'm not going to read all that at the aquarium." Change: I turned the feed into short cards with headlines, dates, and locations. Tapping a card expands it for details, and each volunteer program has a clear "Sign Up!" button.
FINAL DESIGN WORKFLOWS
Workflow 1: Kid Mode
Workflow 2: Kid Mode
Workflow 3: Conservation
FINAL DESIGN VIDEO WALKTHROUGH
OUTCOMES
After 8 months of research, design, and testing, I pitched Beyond the Glass to the New England Aquarium's leadership, and integration into the aquarium's operations is now in progress. The final prototype scored a 78 on the System Usability Scale across 20 in-person participants, above the industry average of 68. Testing directly shaped the final design: the live scan feedback and bite-sized conservation cards both came from problems participants ran into, and Kid Mode was redesigned so children could use it on their own. Aquarium leadership highlighted Kid Mode and the conservation feed as the features most aligned with their education goals.
LESSONS LEARNED
Designing for attention is as important as designing for usability
In an aquarium, the interface is competing with the environment itself. This project taught me to think beyond whether an interaction was easy to use and consider whether it deserved the visitor’s attention at all. The best interactions encouraged people to look back up at the exhibit rather than stay on their screens.
Engagement comes from creating a sense of investment
The most compelling opportunities weren’t just about helping visitors learn facts about an animal, but giving them a reason to care about it. Personal stories, progress, collecting, and conservation transformed passive information into something visitors could feel connected to.
More information doesn’t always create more understanding
I initially approached the problem as an information gap, but learned that simply giving visitors more content wasn’t enough. The larger challenge was designing the right context, surfacing information at the moment it became meaningful without competing with the physical experience.