The Challenge

To celebrate Dartmouth College’s 250th anniversary, Associate Professor Mikhail Gronas approached me with an ambitious idea: create an augmented reality application that would allow students and visitors to discover hidden stories inside some of the College’s most iconic artworks.

The challenge extended far beyond designing a mobile interface. The team needed a scalable platform that historians and curators could manage without relying on developers. Every artwork required multiple interactive points, each containing educational content, images, and contextual information that could be updated over time.

The goal was to transform a traditional museum experience into an interactive educational product while building an infrastructure that could continue growing long after the initial launch.

The Approach

I designed the complete user experience for the AR mobile application, focusing on making complex educational content feel intuitive and engaging. Instead of overwhelming users with information, the interface encourages exploration by revealing contextual stories only when visitors interact with specific details inside each artwork.

To support the project behind the scenes, I also designed and developed a custom WordPress-based CRM system. Curators could create collections, manage artworks, place interactive hotspots directly on paintings, and attach text, media, and educational annotations without writing code.

The mobile application communicated with this management platform through the WordPress REST API, retrieving data about collections, artworks, hotspot locations, and related content in real time. This architecture transformed what could have been a static application into a flexible content management ecosystem that could easily expand to new museums and exhibitions.

The Outcome

The project launched as part of Dartmouth College’s anniversary celebrations and became an innovative way for students and visitors to engage with the institution’s cultural heritage. Rather than simply viewing artworks, users could discover hidden narratives, historical context, and visual details directly through augmented reality.

Beyond the mobile application itself, the custom management system gave the university complete control over future content creation and updates without requiring additional development work. The architecture was intentionally designed to scale, allowing new collections, exhibitions, and educational experiences to be added through a single centralized platform.

The result was not only an AR application, but a reusable digital infrastructure that connected museums, educational content, and mobile technology into one cohesive experience.