The preparation design
The tutorial gave us insights into creating a preparation toolkit for families to help them familiar with museum environments in order to reduce autistic children's anxiety. During the discussion, we've decided that the toolkit should help our target audience in understanding and acting on their actual needs with the instruction of the digital platform. I upgraded the idea of using materials to enhance children's memory and give them advance notice of their environment. Thus, I suggested we start making low prototypes that relate to the exhibits in Science Museum. For instance, I created the moving aeroplane card representing the 'Making the Modern World' area which displays many remarkable objects in the modern period such as an aeroplane model.
Experience in British Library
Emma Tutton is Access & Inclusion Programmes Manager, she works within the Learning Team, at the British Library. We discussed the aspects to consider while introducing family and children in order to plan a pleasant opening. Emma presented that the visual story is available for providing activity information before visiting families as an online resource. In fact, British Library’s ‘early opening’ (An event for families with children on the autism spectrum and other sensory needs) applied this theory. The main reason for this is the fact that this population has been characterized as generally having a strong visual memory and language comprehension berries. Hence, illustrations that are relevant to the context of the instructions play a crucial role in communicating with individuals with autism (Bozgeyikli et al., 2018).
For deeper learning, we visit one event organised by Emma specifically for Autistic children which are Relaxed Early Opening for Families - Paddington: The Story of a Bear. This event only opens for families with children with autism in moring and adjust the environment for them, such as establishing dedicated sensory rooms for children when they need quieter and calmer space as well as keeping comfortable lights on throughout the buildings and lowering the audio volume in autism events. (British Library, 2021).
Visual Cards
We demonstrated our first desired outcome of creating a system with a journey plan, visual cues, and a sensory map. We separated our effort, to begin with first prototypes because we recognised our team's competence of skills. I was still interested in making connections between materials and actual scenarios. After visiting the Paddington event, I realised that visual story plays an important role in helping children's memory. Therefore, I personally designed visual cards for providing basic information about Science Museum. Seven cards represent each of the seven areas on the ground floor, each card has two sides, one with a cartoon illustration with sensory icons and the other with a real image of the exhibition.
Prototype
Manali and I upgraded the visual cards to material visual cards which can be interacted with.
To create a physical, interactive sensory board, we came up with the idea of an onboard interaction to determine which areas have particular kinds of environmental factors, such as crowds, bright light, and loud noises. To implement this, take a pushbutton from cards to put on the map that tells you which area says what.
We showed low fidelity prototypes both online and physical aspects in this stage. Our tutor remarked that it was a great move to let children imagine where they intended to go and then construct a task for them. However, they suggested thinking about the visual language, what kind of material is kid-friendly, and how to make it more immersive. In addition, as parents have been considered a part of users in this design, we also need to think about improving their experience although their job is to help. Alaister proposed to make maps more for children than parents. Children would want to see the fun section, which involves shifting focus from the informative content of the map and to intriguing facts about the place.
