Meow Orb
Academic Project | Product Design | Mobile App
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Tools
Fusion 360 (CAD), Procreate, Figma, Photoshop
Timeline
Feb. - June 2022
Client
Meow Wolf + MaCher
Team
Miguel Jimenez, Jonathan Gomez, Alba Chavez, Jake Strassberg
My Role
Research, Concept Development, UX/UI Designer, Project Manager
Challenge
Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station located in Denver, offers immersive psychedelic art that is paired with a journey of discovery. We were tasked with creating a product for their gift shop that combines digital and physical components to appeal to the exhibit's patrons.​
Problem
Visitors only tend to scratch the surface of intertwined storylines and leave the exhibit feeling like they missed out on interesting narratives and hidden easter eggs. Revisiting the Convergence Station is not always easy for patrons who are often visiting from out of town.
Solution
To get patrons to experience what they missed out on even after they've left, we developed a smart LED light and entertainment device that pairs with the Meow Wolf app. Users can access Meow Wolf content such as videos and cast it directly to their television. Videos sync with the lights from the orb to create Meow Wolf inspired scenes/moods right from their living room.
How can we create a unique experience that allows patrons to relive memories of their visit and help them discover more engaging and puzzling content?
Design Constraints
Secondary Research
Since we could not physically travel to Denver, we performed online research focusing on reviews from the
Convergence Station customers and researching the possibilities of smart home devices.
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Immersive Lights
Patrons from the exhibit love the interactive and immersive lights found throughout.
Smart Home Devices
Many homes use smart devices like Alexa and HUE light bulbs to elevate their entertainment experience.
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Companion Characters
Customizing smart devices appeals to a users emotional attachment to a product.
User Needs
Many Meow Wolf fans expressed enjoying the lights and music of the exhibit they also loved to travel with friends or partners and were excited about documenting their experience through photographs to later share with other friends.
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Identifying areas for improvement
What we discovered
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Interactive lights were memorable. Visitors from the exhibit loved the interactive and immersive lights.
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Overcrowding hindered the experience. Patrons found it hard to take pictures and enjoy features of the exhibit because it was crowded.
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More appealing store items. Shoppers found items in the gift shop pricey and not very appealing.
Meow Wolf Style Guide
Ideating the initial screens
After mapping out the user flow we then created mid fidelity prototypes. This allowed us to quickly ideate our onboarding process to understand how the app and product would function and give us an opportunity to test it.
Heuristic Evaluation
Once the user interface and onboarding was prototyped, we ran heuristic evaluations to determine what we could improve on. We learned that the pairing was not intuitive, to fix this we looked at the Kasa app and their pairing process. We then changed our pairing from a code to pairing through wifi. We also provided clear buttons for the next step in pairing.
Exploring Eco Materials
To address the eco-friendly aspect of our product we turned to LED lights, which emit considerably less greenhouse gasses than fluorescent lights. We also looked at recyclable plastic material for the casing of our device and added a rechargeable lithium battery.
Final Prototype
Experience the Convergence Station journey with a new pal!
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Bring the Convergence Station experience home and share it with friends! Meow Wolf’s Meow Orb is a smart light and entertainment companion that pairs with the Meow Wolf App.
Features
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Enabled Wi-Fi connectivity
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Wifi pairing process
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Meow Orb syncs with smart tv
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Rechargeable LED light
Light Up Display
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Use the Meow Wolf app to cast content to a smart TV. The videos sync with the Meow Orb lights to display Meow Wolf inspired scenes and moods from the exhibit.
Customizable Settings
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Enjoy Meow Orb’s customizable settings to make a one of a kind companion. Explore audio based narrations and immersive multiplayer game integrations within the app to create another layer of the Meow Wolf lore!
Gift Shop Product
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Our project culminated with a final concept proposal to Meow Wolf's production company, MaCher. They really liked our smart LED device idea but found difficulty implementing all the intricacies at a low price point, instead they opted to develop a small scale LED light for their gift shop.
What I learned along the way
As designers, the team I worked with uncovered how important it is to be able to understand other processes besides the design one. In our case we learned about the steps necessary to manufacture a product; how to acquire materials, produce it and ship it. We also learned about how to develop a product tailored to our client’s specific requirements which resulted in our team creating a unique device.
If given more time I’d like to further pursue the interface layout of the Meow Wolf mobile app, specifically focusing on how users acquire content and how it is displayed on their television screens. Additionally, I’d like to delve deeper into how our product would be branded at the gift shop and online.
