The Echoes of Brown Farm - Audrea Guo - Multidisciplinary Designer

®2024

Uncover stories of resilience through immersive, interactive discovery

Overview

The Echoes of Brown Farm is an interactive, web-based storytelling experience that reveals the hidden histories of Brown Farm through immersive, multi-sensory narratives. Users uncover stories by engaging with a dynamic interface, each interaction reveals a personal journey rooted in resilience, survival, and community. Through a combination of visual storytelling, audio narration, and symbolic interactions, the experience transforms history from something static into something felt, explored, and remembered. This is a redesign of a team-based client project for Brown Farm. After the project deadline, I independently reimagined the experience to further explore interaction design, narrative immersion, and emotional engagement. This iteration reflects my own design decisions, focusing on refining the user experience and strengthening the storytelling.

Role

UX/UI DESIGNER UX RESEARCHER WEB DEVELOPER

Year

2025 2 MONTH

Client

Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

Tool

FIGMA ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE BLENDER / C4D GEMINI AI STUDIO

COLLABORATORS

2 UX Researchers

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Research Overview

We conducted mixed-method research to understand how users engage with historical content and how storytelling can become more immersive and accessible in a digital format. Our research focused on: - User behavior in digital storytelling experiences - Existing historical and museum-based interactions - The cultural and emotional context of Brown Farm

Ideation & Principle

Through synthesizing insights from our primary and secondary research findings, we identified the following research question and design principles to inform our design direction.

Ideation & Principle

Through synthesizing insights from our primary and secondary research findings, we identified the following research question and design principles to inform our design direction.

Design Decision

We translated early research into spatial and narrative decisions for The Echoes of Brown Farm. By mapping key opportunities, historical timelines, and territorial shifts, we identified meaningful patterns that shaped the structure, flow, and emotional direction of the experience.

Design Decision

Map out the possible tension and opportunities shaping a user friendly expereince.

Expand the stakeholder map into a broader territory map to understand the full system shaping the experience

Organize historical events into a structured timeline, revealing key patterns, shifts, and categorized narratives over time.

Task Flow

We created a task flow to identify opportunities for integrating interaction points within the experience and clarifying how users move through each step of the system.

Task Flow

We created a task flow to identify opportunities for integrating interaction points within the experience and clarifying how users move through each step of the system.

User Journey

We created a task flow to identify opportunities for integrating interaction points within the experience and clarifying how users move through each step of the system.

User Journey

We created a task flow to identify opportunities for integrating interaction points within the experience and clarifying how users move through each step of the system.

Design Solution

The final experience transforms historical storytelling into an interactive and immersive journey, allowing users to actively uncover narratives rather than passively consume them. By combining intuitive interaction, multisensory storytelling, and symbolic progression, the design creates a more engaging and emotionally resonant way to experience history.

Design Solution

Reflection

This redesign allowed me to revisit the project with a stronger focus on interaction design and emotional storytelling. By reworking the experience independently, I was able to simplify interactions, strengthen narrative immersion, and create a more cohesive system that better aligns with the sensitivity of the content. It also highlighted the importance of balancing engagement with responsibility, designing not just for usability, but for meaning, representation, and respect.