Albuquerque BioPark Penguin Habitat
Penguin Tracker Exhibit

UX Design Lead

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Time: 2019-2021

Client: New Mexico BioPark Society

Overview

The Albuquerque BioPark is an AZA-accredited zoo and aquarium in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Recently, the BioPark opened a new fully-indoor Antarctic penguin habitat and exhibit space. The BioPark Society, the non-profit arm of the BioPark, commissioned the visitor experience for the exhibit spaces, which included a simulated interior “deck” of a research vessel, with accompanying exhibitry. One of the applications for this space was a multi-user, communal touch table exhibit, where visitors could don the boots of Antarctic researchers and aid other international research vessels in gathering “data” from tagged species around the Antarctic coastline.

Approach

The structure of the interactive would be a scavenger hunt, and visitors would be drawn to the table by “request” pings from various international research vessels at sea around the Antarctic coastline. When a request comes in, visitors can start the hunt, and other visitors on the opposite side of the table can join them.

Gameplay Loop

Upon initiating a session, visitors get a quick, unobtrusive tutorial instructing them to place a finger and hold on a cell in a hex grid. Visitors track beacons by holding and dragging, following directional “pings” that guide them towards their target species. The application directs individual users’ touches by guiding them towards a proximity match, so that they aren’t dragging for too long, and they do not intercept another user’s hidden target. If the visitor moves their finger too quickly, the game “loses track of the signal,” and they must carefully watch the arrows, and slowly move around to find the cell where their species beacon is located.

Upon discovering their species, the “data” is added to the session, and the game allows a maximum of four beacons for success. The users must all work together within a time limit to accomplish their goal.

Success

When time runs out, a cooldown screen displays, along with some digestible bullet point information about the species discovered. The number of species tags discovered gets added to a total aggregate of tags discovered that day by other guests who have played the game.

(c) 2024 Joseph Donovan