Visualize your contraceptive choices.
An interactive museum installation for MUVS Vienna.
The Museum of Contraception and Abortion (MUVS) has been providing information on sexuality in Vienna for almost 20 years — on topics school rarely covers. We designed and built the Lebensplanner, an interactive installation that turns a statistics-heavy subject into something visitors can touch, play with, and leave genuinely better informed by.
The brief
Help visitors understand the cost, safety and effectivity of the most common contraceptive methods — but personally, not abstractly. Move the information out of a chart and into their own life.
The solution
Instead of informing about individual methods, we take the life of the visitor as the example. They enter their age and decide how many children (if any) they want, then place physical objects on a 60-year timeline — each 3D-printed object representing either a contraceptive method or a desired child.
The installation reads the choices and returns a realistic prognosis of costs and safety, based on real data from multiple studies (including the Pearl Index and socio-contextual research).
How we built it
The whole thing was produced in the LUX workshop. It went through three major iterations before we ended up with the final version. 45 NFC readers are grouped into 7 custom-built boards of 5 readers each, tied to an Arduino via custom PCBs. The Arduino reads NFC tags embedded in the 3D-printed objects and passes the list to a Raspberry Pi connected to a database — which feeds the big screen visitors see.
The physical and digital interfaces were designed and built to reward interaction and invite curiosity. The complexity is deliberately hidden.
In use
The installation is used by students, young adults and older people alike. Especially in groups that get to know each other, it becomes a great conversation starter. We’re now exploring a way to let visitors take their results home in an online version.