An interactive experience for kids to customize their own LEGO minifigure
PRODUCT INNOVATION | EXPERIENCE DESIGN
What does a hero look like?
— Patsy, Teacher
PROBLEM
LEGO minifigures don't represent the children that play with them
SOLUTION
Kids create a custom LEGO minifigure at a childrens' museum exhibit
Meet Brandon
Brandon is 6 years old and is a huge LEGO fan. He is going to Legotropolis with his mom.
See user personas for Brandon, Haven, and Danielle
This is the story through Brandon's eyes
Onboarding
At the museum entrance, guests buy an RFID wristband, which:
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Grants entry to the exhibit for guests designing a custom minifigure. Parents get in for free
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Stores guests' minifigure designs as they create them
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Limits the amount of guests in the exhibit at a time
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Tracks user flow through the exhibit, to iterate as needed
The Exhibit
The Mayor Greets Visitors
Spatial activated audio:
The people of Legotropolis are bored! Can you help me save the city? Learn what it's like to be a citizen and what you can bring to the city.
Exploring Legotropolis
Visitors meet the people who live in Legotropolis and learn about their culture.
As they explore, they design their custom minifigure. They customize features like facial expressions, skin tone, head coverings, hair, mobility aids, and personal style.
These stations are designed to develop cultural literacy in visitors, and inspire visitors to build with everyone in mind.
LEGOLab Building Zone
After visitors learn about the people of Legotropolis, they build from prompts like "build something to play on" and "build something funny".
When their custom minifigure is ready to pick up, they 3D scan their creation, which saves a 3D model to their RFID wristband account.
Building Station
3D scanner saves Builds via RFID wristband
After the Experience
The package becomes a carrying case and building platform so guests can continue to build anywhere, any time
Process
Guiding Principles
We wanted this brand activation to go beyond adding representative options, and instead to also encourage acceptance of our differences, and create a sense of pride in children who aren’t usually represented by their toys.
Designing for the edges
We created user personas for people of different abilities and identities, and researched how different spatial design, UI design, visual representation, and messaging impacts our key users, and ultimately found opportunities for us to improve experiences for them.
Exhibit Design Principles
The space is modeled after a LEGO city
SCALE
All the LEGO bricks in the museum set pieces are 1' tall, so the average child is the height of a minifigure
COLOR
The classic LEGO palette is calmed with neutral tones to avoid sensory overload
NAVIGATION
The exhibit is set up with a linear floorplan, but guests who need to walk around before feeling comfortable can explore
It is open so kids can be aware of their surroundings
Messaging
Our main goal was to establish an understanding of, and respect for, each others’ differences. Much of this message was conveyed through the exhibit graphics introducing different characters who live in Legotropolis.
Context is vital to visually representing peoples' identities. So, we gave each of the characters a personality, and talked about what they did for fun.
We researched how to communicate to children about our differences, and read different kids’ books like Zahrah’s Hijab that teach about diversity and respect.
UI Design
We researched different UI that is known for being inclusive, like Bitmoji and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Avatar, and analyzed these processes from the points of view of our user personas to find opportunities for improvement.
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We modeled the “LEGOIZE” facial scanning and design system off of current technology, including the facial scanning feature in iOS to set up face recognition.
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For the Head and Hair station, we ordered hair from 4c to 1, and short to long instead of separated by gender