A two-week pop-up museum in Utah highlighted how intentional design prioritizes human experience and shapes meaningful interactions beyond aesthetics through interactive exhibits centered on connection and emotion.
For two weeks in February, the Valentine's Museum Pop-Up transformed an empty space into an immersive experience designed not just for photos, but for shaping how visitors feel when they leave.
The museum was previously held in Provo and Orem, but for its fourth year, it made its Salt Lake City debut.
Founder Nicole Utley, the director of Student Experience in the BYU Marriott School’s Experience Design & Management program, is known to her team as the "Chief Love Officer."
Utley used her expertise in experience design to craft the museum to be more than a Valentine’s Day attraction—it was a demonstration of how intentional experiences can create lasting connections.
“Experience design is literally the design of experiences,” Utley said.
Utley explained that experience design is about intentionally shaping meaningful interactions rather than just creating spaces or events. As pop-up museums and curated experiences have evolved, she noted that people increasingly value quality experiences and deeper connections over surface-level attractions.
“Now people are craving more substance in their gatherings,” Utley said.
The Valentine’s Museum, Utley said, was designed as an immersive and interactive experience, prioritizing guests’ feelings and engagement over aesthetics.
Leah Billings, a senior in BYU’s ExDM program, was part of Utley’s team and helped bring the Valentine’s Museum to life this year. She explained experience design as being “human-centric,” a term used often in ExDM.
“When designing, we thought about what we wanted our guests to feel like when they left, then we designed from there,” Billings said.
Billings said that their guests were their primary focus.
“It really is the most insane project to take on,” Utley said.
As a pop-up museum, the Valentine’s Museum was temporary, creating unique design and execution challenges. With limited time and budget, Utley said the team had to get creative and resourceful.
Utley explained that whether it was building temporary walls and exhibits or setting up, running and dismantling the entire museum within a month, the team found a way to make it work.
Working on the museum showed her the power of experience design in creating meaningful moments, she said.
“It’s inspired me to keep working on my own passion projects and remember that there’s a whole world of possibility of what I can create,” Billings said.
The Valentine’s Museum reinforced for Utley the power of intentional experiences and their ability to create meaningful interactions.
“If you are thinking intentionally about the design of an experience, you can make even a short amount of time very rich for people,” Utley said.
Both Utley and Billings explained that people are naturally drawn to gathering and connection, and experience design plays a key role in fostering those interactions.
“Naturally, we want to be around each other,” Billings said. “Experiential design looks at humans as people, not just means to an end, and helps them connect to each other.”
Experience design extends beyond large events, shaping even the smallest moments in everyday life, and that an understanding of how to design intentional experiences could be of value to anyone, Utley explained.
“There’s so many ways that we gather that I think could be benefited from just knowing a little more about experience design,” Utley said.
The museum reaffirmed to Utley that experience design is about making the most of people’s time and shaping interactions with purpose.
“We only have one life, you never want to waste your time on something not actually filling you in some way,” Utley said. “Experience design is knowing how to really intentionally fill people's time so that it's meaningful for them.”