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Turning complex research into a playful interactive experience, Youtopia is a projection-based installation that visualizes viewers’ consideration of what values they would prioritize in an ideal society.




Timeline
February to May 2023

My Contributions
Ideation
Content Research
User Testing
Researcher Interview
3D Design 
Prototype and Fabrication
Team
Bruce Arthur Jr.
Jaxon Wang
Karina Chow
Lily Yu
Technical Details
Arduino 
Proximity Sensors
TouchDesigner Projection








Adopting a Museum’s Mindset


The purpose of museums is to turn complex historical and cultural information into comprehensible experiences that accomodate for visitors of all ages. This project successfully turned Dr. Jost’s research in Children’s Social Representations of Utopian Societies into a tangible and fun experience.





Design Objectives


  1. Design an experience that cultivates awareness across age groups by introducing the concept of utopias as reflections of a society’s collective ideals
  2. Encourage thoughtful participation through voting on 2 key societal issues that is then visualized physically in the model, dynamically reflecting the collective choices and showing how shared decisions shape the envisioned society.



Initial Proposals 


After thorough user research and interviews with the researcher, we developed a conceptual package for 3 different ideas that take our goals into considerations. This was then presented to guest critics form the American Natural History Museum that help shaped our approach.


Planning and Production


Based on feedback and testings, we settled on idea 1, the city model with projection. From there we created a detailed plan and timeline that would guide the rest of the project.




Prototyping and Testing


We went from paper models for testing user flow to wood and cardboard prototypes to test functionality, technical details and design choices.
Paper Models to Test User Flow



 

Final Work






An Utopian city that reflects viewers’ values




Clear Instructions

The experience starts with a clear graphical overview of the research and instructions guiding to pick two tokens representing the values they prioritize for our society the most.



Acknowledging Viewer Input

through sensors that detect tokens and trigger changes in the projection



Window to Data Visualization

Through the sides of each of the structures, viewers can also glance at the general number of votes in each categories to see how others have voted.