How do we turn profound emotional experiences into action?

The Inzovu Curve

The Inzovu Curve maps a prototypical journey of a person going through the transformative experience of a museum reaching a state of motivation and action.

A museum is more than a collection of interesting objects. A memorial is more than a heap of marble or stone. Each of these types of institutions exist to serve a greater purpose. They create an experience that is meant to inspire some action on the part of those who visit them.

In June 2014, UX for Good went to work on behalf of an institution with an undoubtable moral mandate for action: the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, final resting place for more than 200,000 people killed in the 1994 genocide. Aegis Trust, the organization that built and operates the memorial, wanted to make sure that visitors were offered not just a strong emotional experience at the memorial site and museum, but opportunities to help stop genocide today and in the future. So we sent a team of user experience designers to Rwanda to figure it out.

Carefully observing these young people, the designers developed a model the Kigali museum — and all museums — can use to convert profound emotional experiences into action. This is the story of that model.