I recently volunteered to be a tester for Kinda Studios’ recent project called “Your inner Symphony”. (Kinda Studios is a women-led neuroscience studio and lab based in London.)
“Your inner symphony” is now open to the public and available to experience as a part of the Barbican’s new exhibition ’Feel the sound’ (22 May-31 Aug 2025). It is an immersive installation that “blends neuroscience and design and uncovers the unseen connection between music, emotion and the body’s physiological response”.
The project is in collaboration with Nexus studios as they provide the animation and all visual elements.
What was asked of me as a volunteer tester was to use the installation prototypes multiple times and provide feedback on the overall user experience, ease of use, understanding, readability.
This was a first attempt at such activity for me, however I found it was enjoyable and I felt I was good at it. I managed to spot and describe in detail certain aspects of the experience I felt might be communicated to the user better or just simply differently. I believe I provided valuable feedback and a lot of it, in fact, I think much more than they expected (haha). It felt so natural the information I collected from the tests was so clearly identify-able in my head and I was able to communicate it well to them as well.
This volunteering opportunity was a chance for me to look into another use of animation and learn about the mechanics of it and briefly about the pipeline.
It reminded me of a “Game Jam” festival in Sofia, Bulgaria I attended back in 2019, where i attended talks on UX/UI testing. It peaked my interest even back then but I somehow got distracted with other matters and simply forgot all about it until now. I find the process of sharing my personal experience and registering and pointing out ways to make a product work better comes somewhat naturally to me as I am incredibly detail oriented and it seems my brain is good with patterns.
With all that being said, I believe this is a career path I am interested in looking into further. As it is a rather new idea for me my research and knowledge on the topic is yet to become more extensive.