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AR Interactive Exhibition
ROLE
Experience Design, AR Interaction, Exhibit Curation, Graphic Design
TIMELINE
June 2022 - September 2022
COLLABORATOR
The Hart Cluett Museum
PROJECT BRIEF
An AR visitor experience designed for the Hart Cluett Museum, transforming how audiences encounter the Uncle Sam gallery — from passive viewing to active discovery.
In collaboration with the Hart Cluett Museum in Troy, NY, Augmented Reality × Uncle Sam redesigns the visitor experience of the museum's Uncle Sam gallery. Instead of reading small labels beside static displays, visitors point their phones at the exhibits — and the exhibits respond, with music, voices, and moving images layered onto the physical space.
The gallery holds a story few visitors know: Uncle Sam was inspired by Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy. The project was designed to turn that discovery into an experience rather than a caption.
The Experience Problems
1.
Limited Tour Guides
2.
Small Labels
3.
Visitors skim rather than engage
Museums face a familiar experience problem: limited tour guides, small labels, and visitors who skim rather than engage. My research into AR-enhanced exhibitions (such as the Latvian National Museum of Art) showed that the answer isn't more information — it's letting visitors control when and how they receive it.
Design Principle
The technology should stay invisible; the exhibits should feel alive.
Rather than adding screens or instructions to the gallery, I designed the AR layer to disappear behind the experience itself — visitors don't operate an app, they simply point at what interests them, and the artifact responds. Every choice followed from this: content triggers instantly on scan, each exhibit answers in its own medium, and nothing dictates the order of the visit. With a phone in hand, every visitor becomes their own tour guide, moving through the gallery at their own pace.
The Experience: Touchpoints
I selected three exhibits with the museum's director and designed a different sensory layer for each — plus a poster at the entrance to start the journey.
Entry Point
The Download Poster
Placed at the gallery entrance, the poster starts the journey — striped glasses borrowed from Overly's logo signal a new way of seeing, and a QR code takes visitors from curiosity to their first scan in under a minute.
“I WANT YOU” Poster
The gallery's centerpiece triggers an interview with director Kathryn T. Sheehan, replacing a wall label with living oral history.
Poster with music score
The displayed sheet music plays Yankee Doodle when scanned. Visitors don't read the score; they hear what the artifact contains.
Samuel Wilson's Residence
Paintings of Wilson's demolished house launch a 3D reconstruction video, letting visitors see a building that no longer exists.
Together, these touchpoints form a small journey through the gallery — arrive, listen, learn, and finally step into history.
Summary
Developed between June and September 2022 and launched at the Hart Cluett Museum that fall, this project taught me that experience design in physical space is less about technology and more about choreography — deciding what a visitor encounters, in what order, through which senses. From the poster at the entrance to the last exhibit scanned, every touchpoint was designed to disappear behind a single feeling: a quiet local gallery coming alive.