Concept Brief
This interactive kiosk was designed for a museum environment to introduce visitors to steganography—the art of hiding messages in plain sight. Through touch-based interaction and guided discovery, users decode concealed information rather than passively reading about it. The experience transforms cryptography into something tactile, engaging, and memorable.
The Gap in the Gallery
The International Spy Museum is already a deeply immersive environment — one where the experience is the exhibit. Designing for this space meant the bar wasn’t just “informative,” it was “worthy of the room.” The challenge started before a single screen was sketched: finding a topic that hadn’t already been claimed.
After researching the museum’s existing offerings, steganography emerged as a clear gap. The museum references it — in their Language of Espionage glossary and a virtual event mention — but nowhere does it live as a dedicated, hands-on experience. Visitors could read the word and its definition, but never feel what it means to hide a message in plain sight or discover one hiding in front of them.
That gap became the brief: design a kiosk that doesn’t explain steganography — it demonstrates it. In a museum built on secrets, the exhibit itself needed to behave like one.
Research & Discovery
Understanding steganography meant starting from scratch. The topic sits at the intersection of history, cryptography, and digital technology — so research spanned all three. I explored how the technique has been used in espionage for centuries, the different forms it takes (text, image, audio, and video), the methods behind each, and how modern spies leverage digital tools to hide information in ways that are nearly undetectable.
Equally important was studying the museum itself. The International Spy Museum serves a wide range of visitors — adults, youth, families, students, educators, and people with disabilities — all expecting an experience that is interactive and immersive, not lecture-based. That shaped everything. Content couldn’t just be accurate; it had to be discoverable. Each type of steganography needed to feel like something visitors uncovered rather than read about, which led to the “Decode This” and “Within the Frame” activity concepts baked into the kiosk’s structure.
Final Design
The final screens were mocked up in a dim, immersive environment to reflect how the kiosk would actually feel inside the museum. Lighting was kept low, the background deep and dark, and the teal accent color allowed key elements to glow just enough to draw the eye without breaking the mood.
Every design decision was made with the museum floor in mind — a space where visitors are already alert, curious, and expecting to be surprised. The kiosk needed to feel like it belonged there, not like a screen dropped into a room, but like another layer of the experience waiting to be uncovered.
Title Screen
The entry point keeps things bold and minimal. “STEGANOGRAPHY / The Art of Hiding Messages” fills the screen, with a single “UNCOVER” button inviting visitors to begin. No instructions, no explanation — just an invitation. The touch interaction is implied by the design itself.
Menu Screen
“UNCOVER THE SECRETS WITHIN” sets the tone before visitors even make a choice. The four categories — TEXT, IMAGE, AUDIO, VIDEO — are presented as equal touchpoints with distinct icons, letting visitors choose their own path through the content rather than following a prescribed order.
Text Screen
“Crack the Code” This is where the learning becomes active. Visitors navigate between Overview, Techniques, Modern Usage, and Decode This via a horizontal tab system. The “Decode This” tab surfaces the interactive challenge: a block of innocent-looking text hiding a message in plain sight, with instructions guiding visitors to find it themselves.
Video Screen
“Behind the Scenes” The video item swaps the text challenge for a visual one — visitors scrub through video stills looking for a hidden message embedded across frames. The instruction panel keeps guidance visible without overwhelming the activity itself.
Closing Thoughts
What started as a gap in a museum’s offerings became a fully realized interactive experience. The challenge wasn’t just designing screens — it was designing moments: the pause before tapping, the satisfaction of spotting the hidden message, the feeling of being let in on a secret. In a museum already built on intrigue, steganography earned its place not as an exhibit about a technique, but as a demonstration of one.
Explore the Kiosk: https://tinyurl.com/5yx8um6d
