I am designing this in-progress prototype for city stakeholders, preservation partners and future visitors to the Collin McKinney Homestead. McKinney’s historical importance reaches beyond local namesake status: he was one of the drafters of the Texas Declaration of Independence and served on the committee that produced the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. The Collin McKinney Homestead gives material form to a history that is not immediately apparent at first encounter.

My role as instructional designer is to translate the expert architectural and historical knowledge of a subject matter expert into a learner-centered spatial prototype that uses the house itself as an entry point into historical inquiry: its form, materials, construction and place within early North Texas settlement. The homestead connects public history with material evidence, bringing early settlement, adaptation and civic memory into view. I am shaping the experience around what the SME identified as especially instructive: the “pattern of decision making” evident in the house, which became the organizing principle for the design.

The central learning problem is how to help non-specialist audiences encounter the homestead not only as a preserved structure, but as a material record of decisions made under real conditions of survival, economy, durability and community formation. I chose an AR-adjacent, browser-based spatial prototype because the learning problem depends on situated attention. Learners need a way to orient themselves to the house, move between the whole structure and selected details and connect visible features to the decisions, constraints and materials that shaped early settlement life. Beginning with a browser-based prototype also keeps the project feasible: it allows for low-cost development, SME review and user testing before any fuller immersive build. The learner pathway will be scoped and sequenced to keep the experience focused, navigable and manageable. Learners are invited to begin with an overview of the whole structure, then move through a small number of SME-validated features so the experience supports context before detail. This sequence allows learners to connect visible elements of the house with construction method, material choice and historical consequence, including brace-frame construction, longleaf pine and practical adaptation under settlement conditions.

In a future iteration, I would refine the prototype through SME review, stakeholder feedback and user testing. The SME review would address historical and architectural accuracy; stakeholder feedback would inform planning and public-facing use; visitor testing would focus on clarity, navigation and what the spatial experience helps learners notice.