How we work

The Wonder Project methodology is based on analysis of four areas of visitor experience:

What do your visitors see that they will remember? What are the wow factors of your organization?
What ideas do you want your exhibits, programs, experiences to spark?
How do visitors feel when they engage with you? Empowered? Sad? Inspired?
What will they do when they leave to activate your mission in the world?

Design Principles:

Human Centric Design, Empathy Building, Wonder Making, Collaboration, Designing with Communities

Observation

How do visitors already react to your exhibits? Where are the "wow" moments? In this first phase we'll take a look at what you already have and what is working. We'll talk with you about your vision and mission and what you want visitors to do about it once they leave.

Research

The next step is to listen to key constituents and get their ideas about what they would like to see your organization do to engage with the community. What are their needs and how do those needs dovetail with what you are trying to accomplish?

Design sprints

Once we have spoken with internal and external stakeholders, the fun begins. We'll craft five key questions that we want answered in a 2-hour design intensive made up of participants from other organizations and key target audiences for your project. Two hours later, a vision will likely emerge.

Prototyping and testing

Now it's time to create simple prototypes of proposed experiences, programs, and exhibits in order to test the effectiveness. The iterative nature of human-centric design means that this may take a few tries, but each version gets you closer to what you need to connect and inspire.

Final Recommendations

After the testing and refining stage, principals from the Wonder Project will make final recommendations that will include everything necessary to complete the experience design: exhibit strategies, program outlines, staffing, and even visitor services training.

Project Management

Don't have the capacity on your current staff to make it happen, we can assign a project manager to your organization for a period of time to manage program design, architectural design and/or content development.