Russell Lee

A designer passionate about branding, strategy and creating amazing user experiences. Loves seeing designs and ideas solve real problems with tangible results.

Enthusiastic about random facts, looking at book covers, and saving up for his next Lego set.

Portfolio still under *some*
proof reading! _BrandingSingapore
Vintage Supply
Australian Disability Rights Network _Motion IllustrationReimagining Time_User ExperienceThe Balinese Deity_Book DesignA Very Short Introduction_OtherPlayground
Experience & Contact

The Balinese Deity

_Exhibition Design


Brief
This individual university brief asked students to create an exhibition based on a chosen Powerhouse artefact.
Credits
Russell Lee
Elisa Lee (university studio leader)
What I did
Research
User Testing & Prototyping
Journey Mapping
User Experience/Exhibition Design
When
2023 I chose the Balinese cloth painting calendar to build my exhibition around. The goal was to make users understand a certain aspect of the artefact through the exhibit.

Research
The Balinese cloth was used as a calendar to mark a range of events such as festivals or season changes. It was also used as a calendar to mark birthdays. When a child was born, the characteristics of a Balinese deity would be attributed to the child depending on their birthday. A similar concept to star signs and birthstones.

Approach
I wanted to develop on the cloth’s use as an ancient MBTI test – after all, everybody loves hearing about their own personalities and characteristics. I journey mapped how a user would interact with the cloth through a quiz to determine their personality. An AI would then link their personality test results to the closest Balinese deity. This journey was tested with user testing and low-fidelity prototypes.

Challenge
I wanted users to understand this specific use of the cloth as a sort of personality quiz through closure. This was achieved by contrasting the original cloth with a digital, imitation of the original cloth. Many users were perplexed as to why the digital cloth was a part of the exhibit. However, at the end of the quiz, users could create an avatar and watch it be added live to the digital cloth – coming to the understanding that the digital cloth was comprised of avatars of previous users based on their individual personality traits. This ‘wow, I get it’ moment at the end of the journey was deeply satisfying to see as a designer.

What I would do differently
I would probably have wanted to create mid-fidelity prototypes and recorded more of the user journey and its ‘wow’ moments to better document this project’s process and its outcomes to show to friends, family and employers about how cool user experience design can be.



Investigating the object on its materiality, uses, form, to determine what aspect of the cloth I would develop an exhibit around. I was particularly interested in the illustrations of people and animals.

  
An early drawing of the abstract idea that a user would ‘walk through’ layers of the cloth as they learnt more about it through the exhibit.
A mood board of ideas, visual and written, of what I want my exhibit to look like.
An early iteration of a user journey, particularly focusing on the personality quiz. At the end, a personalised avatar would be created for the user in the Kamasan painting style that the Balinese cloth uses.
User testing with low-fidelity prototypes – Marvin completing the ‘quiz’ on the ‘screen,’
How users would interact with the exhibit: drawn by curiousity to the cloth painting, completing a quiz on the screen, creating their unique avatar, and having their ‘wow, I get it’ moment as they watch their avatar be a part of the digital calendar.
A mockup of the exhibit. On the left, the original Balinese cloth; in the middle, the screen for the quiz and avatar creation; on the right, where the avatar and the digital calendar would be visualised.