While working at Funny Garbage in the summer of 1999, KMIP’s Agnieszka Gasparska was part of an all-star team collaborating with award-winning exhibition design company Ralph Appelbaum the development of a suite of interactive touch-screen kiosks for the then-under construction Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History.

All of the kiosks were to be tightly integrated with the design of the exhibition space itself and would give visitors deeper access to the wealth of information being gathered for the planetarium’s galleries. From the formation and evolution of galaxies, to the 13 billion year history of the cosmos, to the size scales in our universe, each touch-screen focused on a vastly different subject, while adhering to a consistent and simple design strategy. As our target audience was anywhere from 6 to 96 years old, one of our primary goals was to design a set of interfaces that were captivating and engaging, but still extremely accessible and easy to navigate. The resulting kiosks all share an elegant screen design that allows for intuitive exploration of extremely complex information, without getting in your way. We campaigned very hard for a design that was extremely simple and almost “invisible” once a user began interacting with it. As we’ve come to realize – not only through this project but many others – that can be one of the toughest things to nail as a designer. But in the end, having an interface that is so seamless you don’t even notice it, is a true sign of a mission well-accomplished.

• Information Architecture + User Experience
• Art Direction + Visual Design