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GalleryPal

Your pocket tour guide

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Background

My Role: Solo Project, UX/UI Design

Project Type: Google Ventures Design Sprint

GalleryPal is a mobile application that wants to improve the experience of viewing art in a museum or gallery. My job was to run a design sprint and quickly test out a possible solution. 

Design Constraints

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  • Focus on improving the in-person viewing experience

  • Your solution should be designed as a mobile application

Timeline

Research
Day 4
Day 1
Prototyping
Testing
Mapping
Sketching
Day 3
Day 2
Day 5

DAY ONE

Research

For my first day I focused on better understanding the challenge and pain points of the users. I reviewed user research and the target persona to learn more details so I could make an informed solution. Here are a couple of interview highlights:

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Persona

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  • New York City

Goals

  • 23 Years Old

  • Junior Art Director

Angela Art Lover

Behavior

Frustrations

Since moving to New York a year ago, Angela has tried to take advantage of all the world class art and museums in the city. She goes to the more popular museums every couple of months - usually by herself. Angela doesn't really look for specific exhibitions or artists - she just goes and browse whatever works is being showcased.

  • Wants info that will make her better appreciate what she is seeing

  • Angela enjoys her visits but feels like if she knew a little more she'd have a better experience

  • Wants quick information while looking at the art​

  • She tries to read books/articles on art she has seen but loses interest because of how in-depth they are​

  • Quick information 

  • On their own time

  • For the artwork that THEY cared about

After reviewing the research materials it became clear that people wanted:

 

The type of quick information people wanted to know fell into 4 main categories: 

 

  1. Artist Information

  2. Context/Background on the time period and setting

  3. Medium/technique - how did the artist create the piece?

  4. The artist's own thoughts or words about the piece

 The challenge was putting all this information on a small mobile screen without overwhelming the user. In addition, I wanted to make sure to give the user as much control as possible within the app and let them search the exact piece of art they wanted when they viewed it in the museum.  

DAY TWO

Mapping

SFMOMA Homepage

I conducted a solo version of "Lightning Demos", which is an activity that involves researching competitors’ products and relevant products that attempt to solve a similar problem.

The homepage had 13 different categories and only one of them led to artwork details. 

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I expected a list of the musuem's collections... instead I got a confusing flow featured below.

Leads to attractions outside the museum.

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Confusing - not a list of the museum's collections.

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Very limited highlight section. No user control. 

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The information is too dense and not easily scannable.

Summary

This application was extremely difficult to navigate.  There was no way to search a particular piece of art and the art information was limited and impossible to scan. As the user I did not feel in control and that the app would give me options that frusterated me instead of satisfied. 

Musee D'Ornay Homepage

Opening page - feels random. Doesn't direct to current collections. 

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 No search bar or way of finding exact pieces.

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Dense text, can't skim, can'tquick search information.

Both of these applications didn't allow users to search for specific pieces of art in the museum. Since this was a major frustration point in user interviews I began brainstorming possible solutions. 

 

At first I dabbled with the idea of having a search bar or organizing by collection. However after doing some quick storyboarding I concluded that, although effective, they both took up too much time. I didn't want the users having to spend a lot of time on the app because A)  It took away time from the museum experience

                                                        B) it could leave room for frustration and them giving up. Then an idea hit me! 

 

 

 

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Scan QR for more info!

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This solution does a few things:

           1) It allows users the ability to search for the pieces of art they find most interesting in the moment. 

            2) Scanning the code instead of having to type in a search gives users a more streamlined experience to gain                        access to information quickly without gettinglost, distracted of frustrated on the application.

            3) It gives users a way to remember the scanned items so they can save and organize their museum experience. 

Place a QR code next to the art so users can scan it and easily find information on the artwork they are currently viewing.

Creating the Flow

User walks through museum

User walks through museum

User walks through museum

User stops at artwork and scans QR code

GalleryPal identifies the piece and supplies info

User can save and share details

Complete! on to more art :)

THE MVP

GalleryPal is a mobile application that allows users to scan a QR code found next to artwork while on their trip to a gallery or museum. The code supplies them with detailed information on the piece such as context, technique and artist history. The user can then save or share the art that they have scanned and remember the highlights of their trip. 

DAY THREE

Sketching

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To ideate design ideas I completed an exercise called "Crazy 8's", which involves quickly sketching 8 different versions of your most integral screen. You only have one minute per screen so the exercise is very face-paced to make sure you get out any ideas free of judgement. 

I took the best parts of each sketch and compiled a detailed artwork information page. To give better context to the drawing I drew the before and after screens. 

I put the art piece at the top because it should draw the most attention. Below it is a brief description following categories for deeper information which is broken up so the user can quickly find exactly what they want to know.

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On the top bar I added a way to save the piece so users can look back on their trip to the museum. I also included a microphone icon so users could listen to the information while they gazed at art in-person. Lastly, I added an "enlarge picture" button because it's important to see as much detail as possible especially when you leave the museum and want to reflect.

DAY FOUR

Prototyping

Since GalleryPal isn’t directly connected to one museum I envisioned it as a hub of many museums. The first page allows users to pick from available gallery locations connected to GalleryPal and then dive deeper into that particular museum. Once on the specific museum page users can scroll through different sections "collections", "map"...ect. They are encouraged to use the “discover” section with the QR code scanner while walking around the museum. 

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I wanted the app to feel like an extension of a museum so I chose white as the background color similar to gallery walls and purple as the call-to-action color because of its relation to luxury and beauty, qualities of fine art. 

Categories scroll left and right for easy search of the museum. 

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Quick facts for basic information.

DAY FIVE

Testing

Using the prototype I created through InVision I conducted five Usability Tests. I set up a mock gallery with a couple of artworks posted on the wall and asked the participants to discover more about it with the application. 

The test participants brought up interesting points that I would like to test further with more time​. The next step would be to conduct a Card Sort to test the best type of categorization for artwork information. 

"This solves my issue with going to a museum with friends when everyone doesn't want to take a tour."

"Interesting info! But what happens if you don't have all the different category information?"

"Love the audio button, finally no more plaque fatigue!"

Users get tired of reading so much in museums so they loved the audio button however, one user brought up the point of functionality with the audio button. Since the page was broken up into categories how would the online reader automatically go through all the information? Would the user have to click on it each them they wanted a new section? This was an interesting question and one that I would like to pose to developers and people that specialize in assistive technology for the blind. 

Conclusion

"This whole app has made me want to go to the museum!"

Running a GV design sprint was a useful learning experience. The extremely fast-paced nature of the strategy pressured me to come up with ideas quickly and stay focused each day. This structure suited me well, because I tend to work my best when there is a light at the end of the fuse. With the GV Sprint I had to learn and produce in triple time and lots of progress was made in only five days!  

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