# Cooper Hewitt Pen > By David Bingham · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/ > Work by David Bingham. In 2014 GE's design team worked with Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum on the Pen, a device every visitor receives with their ticket to collect objects by touching exhibit labels and to draw at the museum's touchscreen tables. I led the interaction design, paired with Elliott Koehler on industrial design. I defined patron and staff personas and journey maps, sketched feedback concepts, built browser prototypes of the light and buzz patterns, and wrote the timing specification for the LEDs, buzzer and battery light through four signed revisions between March and August 2014. The Pen was shown at the museum's reopening in December 2014, went into visitors' hands in March 2015 and was in use until 2020. - **Period:** 2014 - **Client:** Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum ## Cooper Hewitt Pen Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/opener` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#opener The Pen was a handheld device given to every visitor of the reimagined Cooper Hewitt, used to collect objects from exhibit labels and to draw at the museum's touch tables. I led the interaction design at GE, defining how it answered each touch with light and a buzz, from the first sketches to a signed timing specification. - Image: The finished Pen lying on a white surface, matte black with a metal band, beside its two caps and a black lanyard. A beautiful extension to the reimagined design museum. ## Journey Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/journey` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#journey This is the user journey I wrote at the start of the project, from receiving a Pen with a ticket to staff clearing it for the next visitor, beside the Cooper Hewitt mansion where it all takes place. Writing the whole loop down first, including the staff's part, is how I found which moments needed feedback from the device. - Image: The Cooper Hewitt mansion, brick and stone, seen from its garden in autumn with red cafe chairs on the terrace. Upon admission to the museum, a patron receives a Pen linked to their ticket. They then curate a personalized museum collection by touching the Pen to exhibit placards. That collection can be downloaded onto the large touchscreen tables to learn more and doodle annotations. When a patron leaves the museum and returns the pen, their collection remains accessible online via the code on their ticket. The staff then clears the Pen’s contents, checks the batteries, and cycles it back for the next Patron. ## Worksession Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/worksession` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#worksession The collaborative work session that opened the project: a table of sticky-note clusters, the room where we worked through them, and a site walk through the museum mid-renovation. We started wide, with visitor types from families to curators, before cutting the personas down to patron and staff. - Image: A wooden table covered in yellow and blue sticky notes and index cards clustered under headings such as mom dad and kids, art students and curators. - Image: Four people in a brick-walled room gather round a board of pinned pen concept renderings, one pointing at it. - Image: Eight people in blue hard hats stand in a stripped museum room under renovation, wires hanging from the ceiling. ## Worksession sketches Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/worksession-sketches` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#worksession-sketches Sketches from the work session table: pen bodies drawn around their batteries and board, and an exhibit label with a target where the Pen would touch it. The label and the device were drawn side by side from the first day. - Image: Pencil sketches of pen bodies with their internal parts and dimensions, spread across a table with index cards, tape and a clear tube of electronics. - Image: Two pen sketches of an exhibit label with a Pen thumbprint target in its corner, beside a printed label for an Olivetti portable typewriter and an AAA battery. ## Principles Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/principles` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#principles The seven design principles we set at the kickoff and held the design to. The first two, that the Pen should not be a barrier and that the exhibits are the focus, are why the finished device is one button and a few lights. - **Not a barrier to entry** — It just works for the visitor - **Extension of the content** — The exhibits are the focus, not the Pen - **Belongs in the museum** — Well designed, useful, and beautiful - **Encourages discovery** — Unlocks more content about the exhibit - **Part of an ecosystem** — The Pen interaction is part of the larger museum experience - **Context of use** — Different interactions and uses depending on location - **Direct manipulation** — Enables new interaction with content ## Concepts 1 Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/concepts-1` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#concepts-1 The first row of the initial concept board, March 2014: lanyard-hung pens in grey, black and colour, and a fan of rounded bodies with buttons and rows of lights. The board ran to twenty-two renderings in ten days, and I show them in quantity because the range considered is part of the record. - Image: Four gray cylindrical pen concepts hanging from black lanyards, each with a band of perforations near the tip, one with its cap removed. - Image: Five slim square-section black pens hanging on coloured straps, each with a row of small LEDs near the tip, one uncapped to show a pointed nib. - Image: Five round pens in black, green, purple, orange and blue hanging from matching looped straps, one with its cap lifted off. - Image: Four rounded pens in orange, gray, white and blue fanned on a dark ground, each with a round button and a row of small lights. ## Concepts 2 Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/concepts-2` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#concepts-2 The second row of the concept board: coloured caps over rows of LEDs, angled tips in six colours, rounded nibs, and a clear bar beside a body with light strips and a power button. Colour, where the light sits and how the cap comes off were all still open. - Image: Four black pen bodies with caps in white, green, blue and orange, each with a button and a column of coloured LEDs. - Image: Six black pens with angled tips in white, yellow, orange, blue, green and purple, lined up on a dark ground. - Image: Two white pens with black rounded tips ringed in blue and green, beside a white and a black cylinder on a purple cord. - Image: Three pen concepts: a clear flat bar with a green end, a white body with yellow-green light strips, and a black body with a green power button and tip. ## Concepts 3 Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/concepts-3` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#concepts-3 The third row of the concept board: bodies with light slots along the barrel and a marked power button, and the first flat oval forms held in looped straps. These put the feedback where the hand holds the device, or made the whole device a pebble. - Image: Three pen concepts lying on a gray ground: a black cylinder with a yellow-green end, a white body with yellow light slots, and a silver bar with a green end. - Image: Close view of a black pen with a yellow-green power button, a cluster of small holes above it and a green tip. - Image: Three pens in white, white with blue and black with blue, each with light slots along the body and a clear pointed tip. - Image: Three flat oval pens in green, blue and yellow, each held in a looped frame, with a speaker grille and a row of small lights. ## Concepts 4 Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/concepts-4` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#concepts-4 The last row of the concept board: silver bars and tapered wands on lanyards, oval pebbles in red, orange and yellow, and slim wands with coloured backs. None of these shipped, and seeing them beside the finished Pen shows how much was set aside. - Image: A flat silver bar-shaped pen on a gray lanyard, with a row of lights, a power mark and a speaker grille near the top. - Image: A tapered silver pen seen edge-on from below, with a dark underside and a gray lanyard at its wide end. - Image: Three oval pens in red, orange and yellow with dark necks and looped straps, the yellow one showing a speaker grille and lights. - Image: Three slim wand-shaped pens with silver faces and orange, copper and black backs, each on a looped black lanyard. ## Form Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/form` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#form From the concept board to one form: white printed models on the worksession table, a rendering from the first round of refinement, and a bench mock-up of the AAA cells and board the body had to hold. Elliott led the industrial design and I led the interaction, and we worked side by side so the form and the feedback were designed together. - Image: White 3D-printed pen body models of different shapes laid in a row on a wooden table, beside printed renderings and a craft knife. - Image: Close rendering in dark gray of a pen body with a triangle mark and a thin light slot, beside its cap with a textured oval face. - Image: On cardboard, a blue 3D-printed pen body beside three AAA cells, a black battery holder and a small green Sistelnetworks circuit board. Credit: Group concepts with Jennifer Bove, Andrew Crow, Ryan Diener, Paul Haney, Billy Herweh, Jordan Hunsey, and Elliott Koehler. ## Process Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/process` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#process The eight steps of my interaction process, from personas and journey maps through sketched feedback concepts, software prototypes and a timing specification, to feedback through delivery. The image is my v3 browser prototype, which played each pattern on a rendering of the Pen. 1. Defined “Patron” and “Staff” personas 2. Created simple journey maps 3. Identified actions, inputs, & outputs 4. Aligned the communication mediums to hardware cost, battery life, & physical design 5. Sketched feedback concepts 6. Created software-based prototypes 7. Built timing engineering specification 8. Provided ongoing feedback through delivery - Image: The v3 lighting prototype in a Safari window: buttons for patron, staff and automatic actions beside a rendered Pen with three white LEDs lit. — Pen Lighting Animation · Open prototype → [v1](/media/cooper-hewitt-pen/prototypes/v1/Pen%20Lighting%20Animation%20v1.html) · [v2](/media/cooper-hewitt-pen/prototypes/v2/Pen%20Lighting%20Animation%20v2.html) · [v3](/media/cooper-hewitt-pen/prototypes/v3/Pen%20Lighting%20Animation%20v3.html) ## Exhibit scan test Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/exhibit-scan-test` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#exhibit-scan-test A test from Sistelnetworks on 24 June 2014: a prototype pen tapped on hand-written NFC tags, with the exhibit scan lighting and haptic pattern playing. This is the specification running on real hardware. - Image: A hand taps a white prototype pen with a row of LEDs onto a hand-written card reading Magic Tag, beside a green NFC gateway board. /media/cooper-hewitt-pen/video/exhibit-scan-test.mp4 0:23 On a desk: a green NFC gateway board, a small NFC sticker, and a white card hand-written Magic Tag CH. A hand touches the prototype Pen to the sticker, and its front LEDs flick on and off in a short run. Touched to the Magic Tag card, the LEDs light one at a time along the row, then three together, and go dark. Each is tried a second time, the second Magic Tag scan with the Pen laid on the card. ## Buzzes Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/buzzes` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#buzzes Four buzz lengths cut on 25 March 2014, short, mid, double and long, from half a second to just under two. They are not signals a visitor learns: they were development tests, made to try different lengths of buzz against each other while the patterns were being worked out. - **Short** — 0.552 — /media/cooper-hewitt-pen/audio/buzz-short.wav — A test length, just over half a second, the shortest of the four. - **Mid** — 1.010 — /media/cooper-hewitt-pen/audio/buzz-mid.wav — A test length of about one second. - **Double** — 1.068 — /media/cooper-hewitt-pen/audio/buzz-double.wav — Two buzzes in quick succession, about one second in all. - **Long** — 1.809 — /media/cooper-hewitt-pen/audio/buzz-long.wav — A test length of almost two seconds, the longest of the four. ## Revisions Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/revisions` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#revisions The specification at its four surviving dates, March to August 2014. v3 redrew the timings as bars, v4 made the table download repeat until the transfer finished and buzz only on completion, and v5 cut every timing by a quarter and dropped the three concepts that were not going to be built. The speed-up came from testing: the first version was too slow for an action repeated all day. Reading order · left to right, earliest first 4 states · five months - **v1 · 22 Mar 2014** — Six patterns drawn as rows of LEDs with millisecond gaps, each with a time budget: under a second for a scan, under three for a table download. - Image: The v1 sheet of 22 March 2014: six patterns drawn as rows of LED circles with millisecond gaps, no renderings, three concepts listed down the left. - **v3 · 11 Jun 2014** — 55 15.2 41 74.4 — Every pattern redrawn as timing bars, each budget replaced by its trigger (NFC tag, NFC gateway, or both), and renderings of the LEDs added. - Image: The v3 sheet of 11 June 2014: renderings of the Pen's front LEDs and battery LED added at left, and every pattern redrawn as blue timing bars with millisecond values. - **v4 · 12 Aug 2014** — 59.5 34 23.5 9.5 — (full spec below) - Image: The v4 sheet of 12 August 2014: a Staff Actions heading, numbered procedures under each pattern, and a note that Table Download repeats until complete. - **v5 · 25 Aug 2014** — 9 53 16.5 36 — Every timing cut to three quarters of v4's, the bars drawn to proportion, and the three untimed concepts removed: Scavenger Hunt, Cafe Purchases and Quick Tags. - Image: The v5 sheet of 25 August 2014: the three untimed concepts gone from the left column, the timing bars shorter and now drawn to proportion. ## Spec v4 Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/spec-v4` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#spec-v4 The specification as it stood on 12 August 2014, shown whole and large enough to read: the front and battery LEDs, the haptic buzzer, and every patron and staff action drawn as timed bars. This is the revision that added numbered procedures for the staff actions and made the table download repeat until the transfer finished. - Image: The Pen Lighting concept v4 sheet of 12 August 2014: renderings of the front LEDs and battery LED at left, three untimed concepts below them, and the patron and staff patterns drawn as blue timing bars with millisecond values, under a Staff Actions heading. ## Reopening Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/reopening` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#reopening The Pen on show at the museum's grand reopening in December 2014: the first production unit in a case with its earlier prototypes, the vitrine of concept models, and visitors at the touchscreen tables in the reopened galleries. Seeing the discarded forms exhibited beside the finished one is the design process made public. - Image: A museum case holding the production Pen with its lanyard and three AAA cells beside two earlier prototypes, with a label reading The Pen, 2014. - Image: A man in glasses smiles behind a glass case of pen prototypes and models in a panelled room with a carved stone fireplace. - Image: Visitors lean over a long touchscreen table in a wood-panelled gallery, a red tapestry on the wall and a glass chandelier beyond. ## Context Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/context` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#context The Pen at work in the reopened museum: touched to an exhibit label with its LEDs lit, and in the hands of a family drawing together at one of the touchscreen tables. These are the two moments the design was for, collecting and making. - Image: A hand holds a black Pen printed with Cooper Hewitt against a wall label, its front LEDs lit. - Image: Two children and an adult draw with Pens on a large touchscreen table, a girl beside them holding a Cooper Hewitt ticket. ## Press Block `cooper-hewitt-pen/press` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/cooper-hewitt-pen/#press Where the Pen was picked up: the museum's own account of designing it and coverage from Smithsonian Magazine to The New York Times around the reopening. I show the marks and link only where the page still answers. - [Cooper Hewitt](https://www.cooperhewitt.org/new-experience/designing-pen/) - Image: Cooper Hewitt logo - Smithsonian Magazine - Image: Smithsonian logo - Co.Design - Image: Co.Design logo - Design Week - Image: Design Week logo - [Core77](https://www.core77.com/posts/27870/caroline-baumann-on-renovation-and-innovation-at-the-cooper-hewitt-smithsonian-design-museum-set-to-reopen-in-ten-days-27870) - Image: Core77 logo - [The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/new-cooper-hewitt) - Image: The New Yorker logo - [The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/how-to-build-the-museum-of-the-future/384646/) - Image: The Atlantic logo - [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/11/8182051/smithsonian-cooper-hewitt-design-museum-reopening-pen-4k) - Image: The Verge logo - [NPR](https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/12/12/370131943/please-touch-cooper-hewitt-creates-a-museum-for-the-internet-age) - Image: NPR logo - The New York Times - Image: The New York Times logo - [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2014/12/16/cooper-hewitt-renovation-technology/) - Image: Fortune logo - **AI:** 2, Ideas. AI helped with research, sources, brainstorming or structure. I wrote every word. The tiers: https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/writing/#ai