Genetically Modified Foods

Genetically Modified Foods

Theme:
Our group decided to create an informative exhibit on the topic of genetically modified foods, or more commonly known as, GMOs. What we consume on a daily basis is an aspect of our lives that is often overlooked, but extremely important for our bodies and our minds. A significant amount of our global food supply is composed of genetically modified organisms, but with pseudoscience and false articles running rampant, do we really know what GMOs actually mean for our health?

Goal & Target Group:
As we began the process of creating our application, the goal we used to guide our process, was to provide users with information about GMOs in an engaging way, so that they can be interested in making a more informed decision about the food that they consume. By use of our application, users should know what a GMO is, what makes it different from a non-GMO product, how a GMO is created, and a little bit about its history. Users will also be shown different stances on GMOs to further provide a balanced selection of pros and cons to GMOs from which they can reflect and base their decisions on.

Our target group includes young students from primary school to high school. Young students can use our application as a non-biased source on information to learn from and inform their everyday choices of consumption.

Context of Use & Exhibit:
When considering our context of use, we thought that the most fitting environment would be in a science museum.
Science museums such as Exploratorium have hosted many unique and engaging exhibitions while being extremely informative. The majority of attendees are children which would also fit into our target audience.
The second environment that we found would also work would be to the host this exhibit at a farmer’s market. The reason being that people are there to buy their food, but could also learn about the food they are buying and have them think more consciously about their purchase and consumption. There are often informational stands at farmer’s markets, but without the degree of engagement that our exhibit could offer.

Our exhibition display method consists of 5 main elements: our stand/table, the main display, the secondary display, our plexiglass cards, and an HD webcam.
As a fully realized exhibit, we would display our information using a stand with the main display on the platform and the secondary display facing the user since it is not directly interactive.

Information Architecture:
We first wrote a linear storyline based on our 7 main points outlined in our mind map, but we found the need to add a section for users to “jump around” so they can freely navigate to specific sections of information they are interested in. Following our second revision, we rearranged a few sections and combined other sections to make for a more concise storyline. The final version of our information architecture involved just minor revisions. These included swapping the order of a few sections and the addition of the GMO Mini Game to provide a more interactive experience.

Illustration:
An important part of creating a consistent design style throughout the application was knowing what type of colors, illustration style, and UI we wanted to use. To help us decide, we created a mood board and used it to identify what type of illustration style we would utilize in our application.

End Result: