Media & Entertainment | Service Design | B2C | Visitor Experienc
Designing a Science Museum Experience
Client
Ahbab/ Infinia
Timeline
4 months
Role
Service Design Lead
Overview & Challenge
Desidero was tasked with designing the complete service experience for a new science museum in Ankara, Turkey. The project required balancing educational experiences with commercial objectives while creating an engaging, memorable visitor journey. We needed to collaborate with exhibit designers, architects, science experts, senior stakeholders, and the marketing team to create a cohesive experience from pre-arrival to post-departure.
Key Challenges
- Aligning diverse stakeholder perspectives and expectations
- Integrating physical space design with interactive experiences
- Balancing educational value with visitor engagement and entertainment
- Creating sustainable revenue streams while maintaining the museum's mission
- Designing for diverse visitor groups with different needs and interests
My Approach & Contribution
I led a comprehensive service design approach spanning over 6 months, addressing challenges, aligning stakeholders, and improving the visitor experience through multiple phases of work.
What I did
1. Facilitated discovery workshops with stakeholders, including museum architects, researchers, and marketing teams
3. Mapped a detailed service blueprint identifying all touchpoints in the visitor journey
5. Outlined the visitor experience steps for each exhibit, from idle state through interaction to conclusion
2. Organised workshops with operational teams from other successful museums to gather insights and best practices
4. Worked closely with the concept design team to improve 40 different exhibit/installation concepts
6. Aligned the experience design with commercial targets to ensure financial sustainability
For each exhibit and installation, we outlined the complete visitor experience, explaining what happens in the idle state, how visitors begin interacting, the interaction cycle, how the experience ends, and what visitors could reflect on at the conclusion. This detailed approach ensured that each element of the museum contributed to both educational goals and visitor satisfaction.
Results & Impact
01
Enhanced visitor experience through comprehensive service design methodologies
03
Created stakeholder alignment across leadership, architects, researchers, and marketing teams
05
Developed a cohesive experience strategy that balanced education, engagement, and business needs
02
Aligned museum design decisions with commercial targets, ensuring financial sustainability
04
Improved operational efficiencies by implementing best practices from other museums
The service experience design led to several key outcomes:
- Enhanced visitor experiences through carefully designed journeys,
- Alignment of design decisions with commercial targets for financial sustainability,
- Stakeholder alignment across diverse teams, improved operational efficiencies,
- A cohesive experience strategy that successfully balanced educational goals with business requirements.
Key Learnings
Service design works as a bridge between different priorities. By balancing what visitors want, what educators need, and what makes business sense, we created a museum experience where all these needs worked together rather than competing.
Start with the practical realities before designing the experience. Understanding how a museum actually runs day-to-day shaped our solutions in ways that pure creative thinking alone would have missed.
The spaces between exhibits matter as much as the exhibits themselves. While we carefully designed each individual display, the connections between them created the story flow that made visits feel complete and meaningful.
Mapping the Service Blueprint
We conducted a thorough analysis of the visitor journey, identifying all the touch points, both physical and digital, that visitors would encounter while interacting with the museum. This included mapping out the various stages of the visitor journey, from pre-arrival to post-departure, and understanding the emotions, expectations, and needs of the visitors at each stage.
