Went to see the artwork, and even the 'feel' of the person next to me was saved in my hand... UNIST Department of Design wins 2 awards at prestigious global competition

Design Department Professors Kim Hwang and Park Young-woo Team Win Two Awards at Red Dot Design Award 2021

Audio Docent Product and App Service Design Sharing Appreciation Provide Exhibition Experience

UNIST researchers awarded at the Red Dot Design Award 2021. From the left: graduate student Seongbeom Kim, student Hyejin Oh, Youngwoo Park, Professor Hwang Kim, Jiyoung Lee, and graduate student Seongwon Jang.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] The creative ideas of the professor teams at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) on the theme of ‘exhibition’ have attracted attention at a world-renowned design competition.

These include an audio docent product that helps visitors fully immerse themselves in exhibitions and app services that allow users to record and share their impressions of the exhibitions.

The concept of these works is to provide a better experience for visitors to exhibition halls in the untact era.

The professor team of Kim Hwang and Park Young-woo from the Department of Design at UNIST won two main awards at the ‘Red Dot Design Award 2021’ in Germany, one of the world’s top three design awards.

The awarded products are the audio docent product ‘MoMo’ and the exhibition impression sharing app service ‘moee (My Own Exhibition Experience).’

MoMo, which won the main prize at the Red Dot Design Award.

‘MoMo’ is a handheld audio docent product with a restrained form. MoMo consists of a square frame-shaped stand and nine modules. The small square-shaped modules that can be held in the hand consist of a wireless earset and a single button.

The usage is designed to be simple so that visitors can freely use MoMo by taking it out directly from the museum counter. By wearing the earset inside the module and pressing the button near the artwork they want to listen to, visitors can hear explanations about the artwork. The sound volume can also be adjusted by turning the button.

Professor Park Young-woo explained, “Existing docent products are placed at the counter with long cables wound up, featuring colors and shapes that do not match the museum environment, which is not suitable for the museum space. MoMo has an intuitive and aesthetic design, and its easy usage helps visitors fully immerse themselves in the exhibition.”

Each audio docent module is designed to be stored and charged simultaneously in the frame-shaped stand. The modules are stored like pixels within the frame grid, making management easy.

The design of MoMo involved graduate students Jang Sung-won and Lee Ji-young, along with Professors Kim Hwang and Park Young-woo.

moee design.

‘moee’ is an app service that provides users with the opportunity to record their own exhibition experiences and impressions and share them with other visitors.

The design team created the service inspired by the footprints of visitors staying in front of artworks. Users can select desired artworks on the screen representing the exhibition hall and artworks, and leave their impressions in the form of voice or text.

The impressions left in this way are recorded as footprint-shaped icons, and users can check and share these records with each other, expanding their exhibition experience.

Professor Kim Hwang said, “Visitors to exhibitions find it difficult to express or keep subjective impressions, and curators’ information delivery is one-directional, which limits the exhibition experience. ‘moee’ maximizes communication during the exhibition and allows impressions to be reviewed even after the exhibition ends, providing a sustainable exhibition experience.”

moee is designed to support diverse impressions by providing both official docent services and individual visitors’ impressions. This design involved Professor Kim Hwang, graduate student Kim Seong-beom, and student Oh Hye-jin.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.