Artgaze exhibit finder app

June 2021 (80 hours)
Tags - UX design, visual design, brand guide
I always try to squeeze galleries and exhibits whenever I'm visiting a new city. The project task was to create a mobile app in the lifestyle category. Helping people find art exhibits sparked interest in me, considering there aren’t many apps out there in this category. This project was a challenge for me to explore solutions for this problem with creativity, immerse myself in the touchscreen universe and help users find more art exhibits they like.
Intro
An easier way to find art
Music fans can benefit from concerts tracker apps such as Bandsintown or Songkick. By selecting the music artists they're most interested in, users can get notified when their favourite artists are coming to town. Spotify does a great job by creating a profile around users' music tastes. However, when talking about art, there aren't too many products that do that.
Research plan
How do people find art events they enjoy attending?
We know that art is everywhere, but how do people keep track of art events happening in their area? Are there any pain points in finding a cultural exhibit to attend? Which steps are taken by them and who are the influencers?

To answer to these questions, this study contained:
  • Secondary research to draw a picture of cultural exhibits such as market size, attendance data, trends and challenges of the sector.
  • Competitive research to compare options currently available to users in the market.
  • Surveys to get preliminary qualitative data about users' habits and pain points paired with demographic data.
  • User interviews to hear users' stories about how they currently do this task, uncovering artefacts used and pain points during this process.
Secondary and competitive research
The art sector is still trying to recover from the impact of the pandemic
The global pandemic had a devastating impact on the museums around the world, estimated at around 77% down in attendance*. Galleries and museums' revenue and funding had a massive drop, which shows that they need people coming back to support these galleries now more than ever.
Source: The Art Newspaper
Social media participation
In order to bring people back to the galleries, French museums take to social media to let followers choose works for display. Instagram participation is also key to some museums, where users are encouraged to take pictures of the museum to encourage visitors. The Louvre-Lens museum director, founded in 2002, says "It is our responsibility to constantly try to reinvent ourselves and meet the needs of a population who are not used to going to the museum".
Customisation and recommendations don't exist yet.
There aren't many apps that allow users to find art exhibits and galleries to visit, but apps and websites that do this indirectly.

When analysing the competitors, ArtRabbit does a good job in capturing contemporary exhibits in a useful app but lacks personalisation features in allowing users to filter results by interests or type of art. The interface can also be quite difficult to navigate through considering the lack of wayfinding resources, such as labels on the navigation items. This can lead users to wonder where they are when using the app.

TripAdvisor, the popular trip planner offers to search for museums and permanent galleries in cities worldwide. Because of its popularity, it has plenty of users' pictures and comments, however, it doesn't map any art exhibits. Google also does a good job by indexing events from local portals and specialised magazines, despite lacking an end-to-end app that deals with that.
Survey
Art to learn and get inspired
To get an idea of the problem space, 15 people across three age groups responded to a survey about their preferences when looking for exhibits. Most participants visit art galleries and exhibitions at least 2-3 times per year (10 out of 15). You can check the full survey results here.

I discovered that people almost always visit art galleries and museums when travelling. The majority (13 out of 15) said they usually include art galleries and exhibits as part of their trip schedule. Regarding types of museums, contemporary and historical are the respondent’s favourite types of museums. 12 out of 15 respondents’ goals when visiting museums are to learn something new or get inspiration.

Most participants said it’s easy to find art to visit. However, they think some exhibits can be quite hard to attend, depending on where they live and the availability of tickets. Some others think it’s hard to find art they like. According to them, there are too many options to choose from. Or they never hear about the exhibits unless they check Google or galleries’ websites.
Interview findings
How people plan their visits to art exhibits?
During the user interviews, participants got to share what they look for in art itself and their current journey when looking for exhibits, their goals, frustrations and motivations.
Different city sizes, different scenarios
It might be more challenging for people living in smaller cities to find exhibits they’re interested in attending - so they usually travel to bigger cities, where they have access to a bigger range. However, those living in big cities might have a hard time filtering through the best exhibits and getting tickets on time.
What they look for
Bigger exhibits tend to be most searched for - but people also look for something different, interesting or surprising. During the interviews, people mentioned they also follow their favourite artists on Instagram and check who these artists are following. They're interested in seeing who inspires their idols.
Art is social
Internet is the primary source of finding art events to visit. What people see in a museum is very connected to the social aspect - friends recommend an exhibit, users post pictures inside a gallery, influencers check-in a place, and can influence others to go. Newsletters and museums' social media accounts are also helpful resources.
Jobs-to-be-done
To summarise the insights gathered so far during the research phase, the job of finding an art museum or exhibit to see has many other functional and emotional factors. These were compiled in the Jobs-to-be-done framework, serving as a base point for the solutions created beyond this step.
Define
"How Might We" Statements
People who enjoy attending art events may struggle to find exhibitions they're interested in their area. How we can provide a better solution to connect museums and art lovers?
People need to use different search tools to find the exhibits and museums they like.
How might we support users to find better results they're interested in?
People say it's difficult to find museums and exhibits they're interested in their area.
How might we arouse interest in the exhibits available next to users' locations?
People have to travel long distances to museums they like.
How might we help users during their journey to the museums?
No items found.
Interaction design
The proposed solution comprises an onboarding process to aid users when selecting their preferences. It is known that a long app configuration process can overwhelm users, and at the moment, they might not know whether the app will be useful for them or not. By keeping this in mind, only the essential information is being gathered to create a profile around the user's tastes. These customisations can be then later changed or improved when using the app. You can also view the user flows here.
The central piece of all interactions within the app happens on the Home screen. Based on exhibits visited in the past, users can see suggestions based on artists and galleries they follow. It's also possible to search for new events outside their range in the Explore screen, where users get to know suggestions and upcoming exhibits.
Brand identity
The naming and brand translate the idea of looking at art. I was aiming at a contemporary look for the brand style. By using dark colours, the artworks get the focus on the interface, giving the app a feel of the minimum interface.
The typography chosen for this project has enough power to be the statement piece but also being legible and accessible considering the limitations of mobile screens. The serif font provides maximum legibility across a range of sizes and typography colours.
UI Designs
Customising the experience
The user first goes through the onboarding process where they get to choose their favourite topics they're interested in, followed by their favourite artists. The favourite location can be chosen afterwards, gathering enough data to create a profile around the user's preferences.
Optimised for travelling
Considering users were keen to use the app when travelling, the current solution proposes a quick way to change location, showing relevant results based on the user's area.
Follow favourites to improve recommendations
Following galleries and artists provide a way to customise the results that appear on the Home screen, also by connecting museums to art lovers so they can get to know which exhibits are happening in the places they like. It uses an algorithm that groups similar artists and fans together, only showing exhibits suggestions that users might be interested in attending.
Make plans and keep track of visited exhibits
The research pointed that many get heavily influenced to visit an exhibit based on their social media feed. By providing a way to show others the places users are making plans to go or have visited in the past, others can see similar suggestions based on friends' activity.
Usability testing
Most participants guessed correctly what the app does upon completing the onboarding. Using a prototype, three participants went through tasks covering onboarding, making plans and checking lists. Most tasks were completed successfully.

The participants were confused about the use of Following/Marking places as seen, so it was necessary to reinforce the use of it. To explain these secondary features, tooltips were added at the app first start to remind users about their use, instead of forcing them to learn about it during the onboarding process.
UI Kit
Some other visual hierarchy issues such as contrast and type size were fixed, and the new version visually prioritised essential components allowing users to find the information they need faster. The UI Kit is a document created for this project to centralise all design decisions into a single document, providing a one size fits all document for the team and developers. The colours and element choices had accessibility in mind, enabling the app to be used by a variety of audiences.
Next steps
Considering the time allocated for this project, the following items could be useful additions to the proposed solution in the future. It might be necessary to validate these topics with more research to understand the real user needs and goals behind them.
  • The social capabilities provide many other interesting ways to connect users to other art lovers in the area. It would be interesting to how users could follow others based on similar tastes, or even capabilities like chatting and organising meetups.
  • Creating a feature allowing users to buy tickets. It is known that users living in big centres might have a hard time finding tickets. The app could even make a small profit from the sale of tickets, such as booking fees or ads.
  • Getting notified about upcoming exhibit plans before they end. A notifications screen could be implemented to alert users about plans they made in the past.
I would also love to work with a developer to put the current solution into practice and release Artgaze to the market.
Final thoughts
A better tool to finding art exhibits
The benefit of working with a minimal viable project allowed me to quickly change the prototype, removing certain features that users didn’t find interesting, as well as deploying new ones that might help them complete the tasks. When prompted about the usefulness of the app, participants suggested the app can be a useful addition to their list of apps installed, mostly when they’re travelling and looking for a way to keep up with what’s on in the city they’re travelling to. The solution might reduce the time users spend planning helping them squeeze more art into their daily lives.
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