THE MUSEUM ISLAND IS ONE OF THE MOST VISITED SIGHTS IN GERMANY'S CAPITAL - IS ITS NEWEST ENTRANCE BUILDING ADEQUATELY USABLE FOR VARIOUS TYPES OF VISITORS?

James Simon-Gallery opened in July 2019 as the new entrance building to Berlin's Museum Island. In Febrary 2018, the team of Psy:plan asked 80 visitors asked on site to participate in the study on its planned guidance and information system. They were assigned to one of three experimental conditions. The task was to use different elements of the guidance system for specially designed, complex way-finding tasks. Various methods of qualitative and quantitative questioning were used. Several suggestions for optimization of the guidance system were derived and communicated to the client.

I supported the usability evaluation project on site with interviewing visitors as well as documenting the qualitative data we got. The challenges to our team were on the severe weather conditions (-5° on windy February days), and the building's state - the Gallery was still an open construction site. For our test persons, these made the study very exciting and unusual. I learned a lot about the needs of museums visitors (elderly, foreigners, kids) and their behaviour when visiting one.

Moczek, N. & Rambow, R. (2019). Architekturpsychologische Evaluation der Ersteinrichtung des Leit- und Orientierungssystems für das neue Eingangsgebäude zur Berliner Museumsinsel. (engl. "Building Performance evaluation of a Preliminary Guidance and Information System for the Entrance Building to the Museum Island in Berlin") Umweltpsychologie, 23. Jg, Heft 1 (44), S. 91-97.