U!Scientist: Designing for People-Powered Research in Museums – SIGCHI 2021, Best Paper
Authors –Mmachi God’sglory Obiorah et al.
Key words – Citizen science, museums, interactive tabletop displays
Abstract – Scientists have long sought to engage public audiences in research through citizen science projects. This project engages public audiences in contributing to real research as part of their visit to a museum. We present the design and evaluation of U!Scientist, an interactive multi-person tabletop exhibit based on the online Zooniverse project, Galaxy Zoo. We installed U!Scientist in a planetarium and collected video, computer logs, naturalistic observations, and surveys with visitors. Our findings demonstrate the potential of exhibits to engage new audiences in collaborative scientific discussions as part of people-powered research.
