Burke Musuem Kid Design System
Creating a child-centered experience and scalable design system for the Burke Museum
During my INFO 462 (Design Systems for Digital Experiences) course, our team designed the Burke Museum's first child-focused digital experience from scratch. Without any existing kid-friendly content to build upon, we built an entire experience for young visitors alongside a scalable, responsive design system that ensures accessibility and consistency across mobile and web platforms.
Timeline
May 2025 to June 2025
Team
2 UX Designers
2 UX Researcher
Tools
Figma (Prototype)
Adobe Illustrator (Visuals)
Paper Prototype
Figjam (Research)
Google Suite
Role
Sketching, Wireframing, Ideation, Iterative Prototyping, Usability Testing, Final Mock-Up
THE PROBLEM
The Burke Museum's current website caters primarily to adults, missing opportunities to engage children who are a critical audience for the museum's educational mission and exhibitions.
HOW MIGHT WE…
reinvent the Burke Museum's website to spark kids' curiosity and make exploring natural history and culture fun and exciting?
RESEARCH
Key findings from interviews and literature reviews
Understanding that the current website is only tailored towards adults, our team gathered insights from through iterature reviews, competitive analysis child-focused museum websites, and user interviews with children (Age 9-12).
Literature Review
Enhancing interactivity, visuals, and age-appropriate content (e.g., big fonts, cheerful imagery, dynamic characters) can create engaging online experiences that complement in-person visits.
Key challenges include ensuring content is structured for children’s comprehension, maintaining continuity with in-person experiences, and avoiding overstimulation or safety/privacy issues.
User Interviews
Children are drawn to fun, colorful, and visually engaging content, especially when it involves animals, dinosaurs, games, or science-based interactivity
Digital experiences should offer value beyond infrequent museum visits, as children don’t typically use museum websites directly
Market Research (Current Kid-Oriented Musuem Websites)
Persona
Our team created two personas - one representing a more mainstream user and another reflecting a more marginalized perspective.
Sarah Lander - 3rd grade student, 8 years old
Sarah is a second grader with limited tech experience and red-green color blindness who needs a high-contrast, easy-to-navigate virtual museum that supports accessible, independent exploration from home.
"I wish people would use more than just colors to show different things. It makes me feel left out when I can’t tell what’s going on.”
Freddy Smith - 5th grade student, 10 years old
Freddy is a fourth grader who loves dinosaurs and needs an interactive, visually engaging museum website that keeps him interested without relying on heavy text, supporting his developing reading skills.
“I wish I can learn more about dinosaurs and fossils in Burke Museum.”
Solution Ideation
Building Our Design System
Before diving into wireframes, my team and I built a design system consisting of style guides and components that reflected the needs of our persona. Some commonality of styles included rounded shapes, bold colors, and fun interactions to take account of the playful but informative theme.
Icons
Buttons
Navigation Bar (Desktop & Mobile)
Cards
Core Elements & Features Ideation
Through ideation, we developed a physical board game with relatable storylines where players answer questions and complete activities, promoting face-to-face interaction and open conversations about feelings between children and parents.
Initiate Conversation
Express Feelings & Opinions
Connect with other players
FINAL PROPOSED SOLUTION
Introducing The Burke Musuem for Kids!
Starry needs your help! Her family has noticed lately that she has been struggling throughout the week. Do your best to assist Starry by offering her your advice and wisdom! This game is suited for 2-5 players, ages 6 and up. Adults and children are highly encouraged to play together.
LEARNINGS
Adapting to physical prototyping
Going back to the fundementals, I learned manual prototyping techniques using paper and pencil, moving away from our initial digital product assumptions when we discovered our target users had minimal interaction with digital devices.
In-person user testing challenges
Shifted from convenient virtual testing to in-person sessions with children, requiring creative testing strategies within our university environment.
Providing more settings and environments for the board game storyline
Moving forward, we hope to expand Day By Day into more schools to measure its broader impact on mental health understanding and communication skills.