In New Zealand, more than 15,000 earthquakes occur annually, earning the country the moniker "The Shaky Isles." However, only around 100-150 of these earthquakes reach a magnitude that can be felt by humans, while the remainder are detected solely by seismographs.

For many New Zealanders, accessing and engaging with this expanding collection of earthquake data has posed a significant challenge.

In 2019, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa) undertook a renovation of their nature exhibits, which had been educating visitors about the country's distinctive flora, fauna, and geography for 21 years. They approached us with the task of designing and developing a data-oriented digital experience for the newly created Whakarūaumoko Active Land exhibition in the Te Taiao Nature zone.

The outcome was Quake Nation, a sizable interactive touchscreen that enables museum visitors to explore the concept that earthquakes are not isolated events, but rather moments within an unending sequence of tremors.

On this project I was oversight on the research and early prototyping along with working on the sale including the project approach and setting up the discovery phase.

ROLE
Experience Director

CLIENT
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

AGENCY
Springload

In a strong partnership with GNS Science, we expanded upon Te Papa's original idea, design, and audience research. Throughout the entire design journey, our team conducted thorough prototyping, leveraging the vast and comprehensive GeoNet earthquake dataset. From the very start, we delved into numerous approaches to present the data, while also experimenting with enjoyable and user-friendly methods of engagement.

To assess our initial concepts and enhance the overall experience, we employed visual representations of screen designs, gathering valuable feedback from Te Papa personnel. This collaborative process allowed us to identify successful elements and pinpoint areas for improvement in the experience.

We tested many different timeline layouts — including vertical, horizontal, a wheel, and even a zoomable version. We went through many iterations to un-pick tricky questions like, ‘how many pixels wide is a year? How long is a day?’ 

In the end, we went for something simple. We present one entire year on-screen horizontally, and a marker in the middle tells you the date of the earthquake that’s displayed.

The scrollable timeline lets users explore the entire GeoNet earthquake dataset back to 1810. But it’s not just historical data. The GeoNet API feeds in live data every few minutes and alerts users when the latest earthquake above a specific magnitude is detected.

Each earthquake is represented by a white bubble on the timeline. The bubble’s vertical position shows epicentre depth up to 200km, and the horizontal shows the date. The magnitude is represented by the size of the bubble — the bigger the bubble, the stronger the quake. 

And since the exhibition was opened we’ve made further refinements. We tweaked the timeline to make it easier to scroll through multiple years at a time, so you can skip effortlessly from 1810 to today.

In our observational research of visitor use of the interactive, we observed that of the visitors who came within proximity of Quake Nation, over 40% engage. This is an excellent conversion rate for a touchscreen interactive in an exhibition of this kind.