When the Exhibit Speaks Back A Research Through Design Study of Relational, Conversational, Role-playing AI in a Science-Center Learning Environment

Purpose: This thesis investigates how a relational, conversational, role-playing AI agent can be designed as part of a science-center exhibit. It examines how such an agent may support visitor curiosity and learning encounters, which interaction patterns and tensions emerge during testing in a live exhibition environment, and what design knowledge the case can contribute to the further development of conversational AI in science centers. The study was conducted at Universeum in Gothenburg, where a prototype designed to speak as Miriam, an Ethiopian mountain viper, was developed and tested in the reptilarium. Theory: The thesis draws on Dewey's account of experiential learning, Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning, and Bruner's understanding of narrative as a mode of meaning-making. Bickmore's Relational Agent Theory informs the analysis of the agent's social and conversational qualities. Research on role-playing language agents is used to examine persona stability, role consistency, and character design, while Burke and Copenhaver's work on anthropomorphism informs the analysis of how the snake persona mediates access to scientific content. Method: The study was conducted as a qualitative Research through Design project, based on Zimmerman et al.'s account of the approach and organized through five iterative cycles inspired by the Double Diamond. The empirical material consists of the design log, system prompts, factual reference documents, field notes, consent documentation, and transcripts from nine included live visitor interactions. The analysis started from concrete things that happened during the project, interpreted them with help from theory, and drew out what each one meant for the design. Results: The findings show that a relational conversational agent in a science-center exhibit cannot be understood only as a language model or prompt system. It must be designed as one whole exhibit, where the character’s voice, the facts it delivers, the limits on what it may say, how well it answers, and how it is physically set up all work together. The visitor material revealed opportunities for visitor-led inquiry, personal-character questions, perspective-taking, and short explanatory dialogue, as well as tensions involving question-answer mismatch, factual gaps, unclear speech input, over-humanization of the animal, and audio constraints. The thesis contributes six design principles: separate role logic from factual grounding while designing them together; treat answer relevance as part of relational design; use visitor transcripts as redesign material; use anthropomorphism as a bounded pedagogical strategy; treat the physical installation as part of the conversational artifact; and transfer design logic rather than a finished prompt.