Gallery Pal
Role
Product Designer
Project Type
Design Sprint
Tools
Adobe XD
Day 1: Map
Overview
One of the many pastimes is visiting a local art museum and although they are very popular there are ways that the experience can be improved. This problem is challenging since the museum experience is very simple and does not need much to be changed, however, one of the main issues is to provide a way for visitors to gain more understanding of the artist’s vision and background for the work. This brings about the question.
“How might we bridge the gap between the artist and the viewer? ”
In order to address this question, I looked into visitor involvement to uncover methods in which to develop a platform that would provide a seamless transition into the user experience.
Objective
My goal was to gain insight from users, produce a key series of screens, and create a prototype that would deliver a general concept for the application.
Personas
For this exercise UX researchers developed personas and contextual insights that were delivered to be as a tool to assist in the research portion of this project. Based on the personas there were several items that users wanted to suggest including:
Artist Information
Purpose of the work
Don't want information overload
Mid-Fidelity / Mid Resolution Prototype [Content Redacted]
Affinity Diagram
One of the primary methods to outline the highlights was to gather comments received from interviews and surveys. This was then organized into two separate categories based on the contents, in this case “Experience” and “Information.” These groups would later help me gain an idea to which direction the concept should be focused on.
User Map
A user map was generated to indicate the potential flow of the user experience. This would be referenced when developing the key screens and prototype.
Day 2: Sketch
Lightning Demo
Lightning demos were conducted to gain an understanding of how similar application styles would navigate and function. In this instance, the application would likely resemble an app that allows users to view photos individually within a gallery. I examined several apps to create a sample of elements that could be translated into the design sprint prototype.
These elements included:
Spacing
Layout
Function
Navigation
Accessibility
Crazy 8’s
Afterwards, I incorporated a Crazy 8 exercise that allowed me to rapidly brainstorm a series of screens that were inspired from the insights taken from the lightning demos. From this exercise I located the screen that would have best shown the chosen artwork while indicating that other works were available to view by scrolling through.
Solution Sketch
After designating the most critical screen, I created a panel that displayed the screen before the critical screen, the critical screen itself, and the screen that came after.
Day 3: Decide
Design Concepts
After brainstorming ways in which to enhance the user experience and utilizing the critical screens. I used survey, background information, and user mapping to envision the the visitor's perspective when viewing artwork. This led to to development of 7 individual screen designs.
Day 4: Prototyping
Prototyping
The low-fidelity screens were brought into the prototyping phase. These ideas were translated into more refined screens whereby buttons were mapped out using an app called Marvel. The prototype process was iterative and I made several quality control checks and made multiple screen revisions before progressing to the testing phase.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Day 5: Validate
Testing
The next day required bringing the prototype through a series of usability tests that would validate and test any navigation, visual, or accessibility issues a user might encounter.
Feedback
Much of the feedback mentioned navigation issues and issues that were a result of prototype limitations such as the lack of scrolling and limited user flow options. They commended the overall aesthetic of the app and suggested minor changes for the user interface.
Following the tests, I implemented these critiques into the initial high-fidelity screens to create a more efficient and refined product. The revised screens can be seen below.
High-Fidelity Final Screens
Key Takeaways
The pace and iterative nature of the design sprint allows for many ideas to flourish. However, in the midst of the creativity there must be calculated decisions on which designs to pursue. Each day is a different phase so I had to be steadfast in knowing that the options I chose provided the most intrigue and clarity to move onto the next phase.