Our Solution:
The 21st Hour is an interactive, story-based web experience that combines both traditional multimedia and virtual worlds, reconstructing the life of one of baseball's greatest heroes: Roberto Clemente. The 21st Hour goes beyond time and space, delivering an experience that engages, informs, and inspires people from around the world.
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The 21st Hour puts emphasis on Clemente’s life beyond his fame as a star athlete but also as a proud Puerto Rican, family man, and humanitarian, to engage and inspire the next generation of young adults.

Overview

Our web experience is structured through a more traditional, yet interactive timeline. Its aesthetic draws upon elements of history and combines it with a modern feel.

Our final design makes history interactive, and bridges the gap with usable design. By focusing the virtual, immersive scenes into key moments in Clemente's life, users are offered much more context as to what the virtual scene represents, and what they can do inside it.

Why roberto Clemente?

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Background

What Makes a Museum?

Physical museums and where the Clemente Museum is today
Discuss our research through interviews to understand the current state of museums and the Clemente museum
Key insights and evidence

An interactive timeline that showcases key moments and stories throughout  Clemente's life

Interactive artifact detail pages that include multiple multimedia options

An immersive scene that puts you in the shoes of Roberto Clemente in environment
Social Sharing features that lets users interact with other users, and submit their own stories and reflections
A mini-game scene that combines interactivity and learning
Explore Clemente's life through time

Timeline

Upon landing on Clemente: The 21st Hour, users are greeted with a visual representation of Clemente’s life, his greatest achievements and his proudest moments via an interactive timeline.

This timeline provides a big picture overview of Clemente, which we found to be helpful for users who had little or no background information of him, before they delved into specific events in his life. It highlights and includes major events in Clemente’s life we deem were important. We also wanted to provide users with a main page they could always revisit to orient themselves as to where they were in the experience, and also to use as a main navigation page.

Current State

(Primary Research, 2021)

Semi-structured interviews
Artifact analysis
To surface what makes museums compelling and engaging, we spoke to young adults who have visited museums and patrons of the Clemente Museum. These semi-structured interviews, along with our own in-person visit to the museum, let us develop a map that consolidates the core museum principles most relevant to the Clemente Museum.

Analogous Domains

(Primary Research, 2021)

Semi-structured interviews
We also reached out to museum professionals, including experience designers, managers, and curators ranging from the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) to The Met. Combined with various team visits to Pittsburgh museums, we built our corpus of universal elements of compelling museums.
"Tell the story, either from [Clemente's] perspective or someone else's perspective, so it's more about narrative." - Kevin Park

"If you have a great story and an amazing character...it’s worth creating a link with the present, especially if you want to connect with youth." - Valentina Nisi
During the synthesis of our conversations and excursions, we deconstructed recurring themes using an affinity map and forged key insights from them. These insights, while inspired by the current state of the Clemente Museum and museums like it, are ubiquitous in their application in a virtual space.

"Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth."

- Roberto Clemente

A Closer Look At:

Collage Pages

Information at a Glance

Collage pages provide a visual unravelling of Clemente’s  story and aim to offer a brief overview of events that are crucial to Clemente’s story in a way that is informative but not overwhelming.
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We maintained the collage aesthetic of the main timeline and added pops of color among the older black and white pictures. While Clemente is a historical figure, we wanted to add a modern touch to it, especially to appeal to our younger target audience.

Opportunity Spaces

With our primary research, we saw that the most fundamental aspect to our type of museum experience is rich, relatable storytelling and discussion. Since our challenge is to deliver these stories remotely and virtually, we began building and testing pretotypes to test how we could combine interactive virtual elements with rich storytelling.

Exploring Virtual Exhibits
in Minecraft

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To observe how people engage with museum-like virtual spaces, our team turned to one of the quickest rapid prototyping tools we could think of: Minecraft!

We crafted different rooms with artifacts, each with a different combination of narration and interactivity, letting people touch and move artifacts as well as trigger stories about them. Even in this blocky, low-fidelity world, people were hesitant to interact with the space and artifacts during our interviews. They brought with them the social inhibitions of real-world museums, even without consequences.
“When I knocked over the [virtual artifact], it felt as if I had done something wrong. I had to get out of there.”

“This place makes me feel like ‘look, but don’t touch.’”

Fostering Virtual Discussion

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To deepen our exploration of how people might engage with virtual exhibits, we drew on inspiration by an integral behavior noted in our primary research: 7 out of 8 of those interviewed noted they favored going to museums with friends, and talking about what they experienced.
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To preserve that less tangible but key aspect of museum visitation, we created a pretotype that offered a space for both live and asynchronous reflection and commenting over a shared multimedia experience.

A Closer Look At:

Immersive Scenes

Learning and Engagement Through Immersion

Throughout several points in the timeline, the user will scroll and land on an immersive scene page. These could range from any significant moment or story in Clemente’s life. In our prototype, our team spent the time to recreate two major events in Clemente’s life; (1) the apartment where Clemente lived in Pittsburgh after marrying Vera and (20 the peak of his baseball career, the 3,000 hit.

Having 3D models allows users to interact with artifacts without fear of breaking them or having the materials wear down over time. These pages also help to embed the story behind the artifact, including the museum’s story, rather than having just a floating object.


Opportunity Spaces

With our primary research, we saw that the most fundamental aspect to our type of museum experience is rich, relatable storytelling and discussion. Since our challenge is to deliver these stories remotely and virtually, we began building and testing pretotypes to test how we could combine interactive virtual elements with rich storytelling.

Exploring Virtual Exhibits
in Minecraft

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To observe how people engage with museum-like virtual spaces, our team turned to one of the quickest rapid prototyping tools we could think of: Minecraft!

We crafted different rooms with artifacts, each with a different combination of narration and interactivity, letting people touch and move artifacts as well as trigger stories about them. Even in this blocky, low-fidelity world, people were hesitant to interact with the space and artifacts during our interviews. They brought with them the social inhibitions of real-world museums, even without consequences.
“When I knocked over the [virtual artifact], it felt as if I had done something wrong. I had to get out of there.”

“This place makes me feel like ‘look, but don’t touch.’”

Fostering Virtual Discussion

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To deepen our exploration of how people might engage with virtual exhibits, we drew on inspiration by an integral behavior noted in our primary research: 7 out of 8 of those interviewed noted they favored going to museums with friends, and talking about what they experienced.
‍
To preserve that less tangible but key aspect of museum visitation, we created a pretotype that offered a space for both live and asynchronous reflection and commenting over a shared multimedia experience.

A Closer Look At:

Artifact Pages

In-Depth Exploration of Historical Artifacts

Artifact pages highlight specific objects, their history, story, and significance towards Roberto Clemente.
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Some pages feature photo-captured 3D models: this allows users to interact with artifacts without fear of breaking them or having the materials wear down over time. These pages also help to embed the story behind the artifact, including the museum’s story, rather than having just a floating object.

Artifacts from the museum are virtualized and offer users deeper interaction with 3D models. These artifacts are accessible through both the collage pages and immersive scenes.

Static artifact pages have a similar set of features as the interactive pages. Users can look for more information, watch videos, and navigate to related pages.


Opportunity Spaces

With our primary research, we saw that the most fundamental aspect to our type of museum experience is rich, relatable storytelling and discussion. Since our challenge is to deliver these stories remotely and virtually, we began building and testing pretotypes to test how we could combine interactive virtual elements with rich storytelling.

Exploring Virtual Exhibits
in Minecraft

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To observe how people engage with museum-like virtual spaces, our team turned to one of the quickest rapid prototyping tools we could think of: Minecraft!

We crafted different rooms with artifacts, each with a different combination of narration and interactivity, letting people touch and move artifacts as well as trigger stories about them. Even in this blocky, low-fidelity world, people were hesitant to interact with the space and artifacts during our interviews. They brought with them the social inhibitions of real-world museums, even without consequences.
“When I knocked over the [virtual artifact], it felt as if I had done something wrong. I had to get out of there.”

“This place makes me feel like ‘look, but don’t touch.’”

Fostering Virtual Discussion

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To deepen our exploration of how people might engage with virtual exhibits, we drew on inspiration by an integral behavior noted in our primary research: 7 out of 8 of those interviewed noted they favored going to museums with friends, and talking about what they experienced.
‍
To preserve that less tangible but key aspect of museum visitation, we created a pretotype that offered a space for both live and asynchronous reflection and commenting over a shared multimedia experience.

A Closer Look At:

Social Sharing & Reflection

The main flow of the social page allows for users to view other stories submitted by online visitors.

A Wall of Stories

The Wall of Stories is housed at the end of our experience  to provide visitors an opportunity to read other’s stories and/or share their own. It presents stories that respond to specific prompts, such as family or community, that are inspired by Clemente.
The need for reflection for lasting impressionsEarlier in our research phase, we identified that physical museums provide visitors the time and space to reflect and process the stories they’ve just read. In addition, visitors today visit museums with others and engage in discussion around the story and artifacts which help them process their thoughts more. These moments help visitors remember their visit and the information consumed better.

Taking this feedback, it was crucial for our design to incorporate and mimic aspects of these moments in the physical museum so visitors can connect more with Clemente and remember his stories. 

Opportunity Spaces

With our primary research, we saw that the most fundamental aspect to our type of museum experience is rich, relatable storytelling and discussion. Since our challenge is to deliver these stories remotely and virtually, we began building and testing pretotypes to test how we could combine interactive virtual elements with rich storytelling.

Exploring Virtual Exhibits
in Minecraft

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To observe how people engage with museum-like virtual spaces, our team turned to one of the quickest rapid prototyping tools we could think of: Minecraft!

We crafted different rooms with artifacts, each with a different combination of narration and interactivity, letting people touch and move artifacts as well as trigger stories about them. Even in this blocky, low-fidelity world, people were hesitant to interact with the space and artifacts during our interviews. They brought with them the social inhibitions of real-world museums, even without consequences.
“When I knocked over the [virtual artifact], it felt as if I had done something wrong. I had to get out of there.”

“This place makes me feel like ‘look, but don’t touch.’”

Fostering Virtual Discussion

(Generative Research 2021)

Pretotyping
To deepen our exploration of how people might engage with virtual exhibits, we drew on inspiration by an integral behavior noted in our primary research: 7 out of 8 of those interviewed noted they favored going to museums with friends, and talking about what they experienced.
‍
To preserve that less tangible but key aspect of museum visitation, we created a pretotype that offered a space for both live and asynchronous reflection and commenting over a shared multimedia experience.
Future of the
21st Hour

Expansion & Modularity

In our addition to our current solution, we identified several opportunities for further expansion of “Clemente: The 21st Hour.” In this section, we will provide several recommendations to further enhance the experience for our target audience. The recommendations are broken down into several categories.
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While our solution is substantial standalone and exists as a great foundation to introduce the narrative of Clemente, having an engaging introduction video fo Roberto Clemente would further enhance user’s experience.
We strongly believe that our prototype has the potential to not just exist in an online, virtual space, but also lends itself to a physical installation for in-person museum visitors.
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3
The Clemente Museum has a wealth of artifacts and stories,  more than we could have included in our experience. There are so many more facets of Roberto Clemente’s life that could lend themselves to our experience.
The two immersive scenes currently part of The 21st Hour, Clemente’s apartment and his 3000th hit, are prime examples of the variety of location and interaction that make up an immersive scene. Using historical photographs, videos, audio, and artifacts from other important events or locations in Clemente’s life, the Clemente Museum can design more of these immersive virtual scenes.
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We imagine more options to submit one’s thoughts or stories throughout the experience rather than having it at the end. This would make the user feel like this experience is communal and that they’re not doing it alone. Again, we took this from the museum and our musuem-goer interviews, where people said they tend to visit in groups of friends and family.

Solution Criteria

Our research materialized the design directions crucial for a meaningful Roberto Clemente experience, made interactive and virtual to engage a broader and younger audience than ever before.
1
Feature cohesive themes that connect Roberto's stories and artifacts with rich storytelling.
Present the space, artifacts, and stories in a way that encourages active interaction, not passive observation.
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3
Couple content with appropriate mediums, each offering a new layer of information to build on one another.
Build spaces for anonymous, multimedia reflections on stories and exhibits, and enable interaction with others' reflections asynchronously.
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CMU MHCI x CLEMENTE MUSEUM 2021