GalleryPal
Year
2023
Role
UX DESIGNER / SOLO CREATOR
Brief
An unobtrusive mobile app that helps museum and art gallery visitors explore solo and deepen their appreciation of art
Overview
Problem
Visitors to museums and art galleries don’t have easy, straightforward ways to learn more about the art on display. This frustrates them, because lack of knowledge prevents them from appreciating the art on a deeper level.
Process
GalleryPal was born of a week-long creativity sprint. I was given a real-world problem to be solved with a mobile app, and I followed a logical, regimented design process resulting in a user-centered product ready to build.
Solution
GalleryPal is a mobile app that helps users easily and independently explore museums and art galleries and deepen their appreciation of works of art, using unobtrusive learning methods that enhance the art-viewing experience.
Research
The Visitor Perspective
As part of the sprint, I was provided certain research materials, including interviews with visitors to museums and art galleries. I identified commonalities in the interviews to help pinpoint major needs to address.
Visitor Traits
Typically want to explore on their own, not in a tour group
Want to appreciate art on a deeper level
Need context about art to reach a deeper appreciation
Are frustrated when there aren’t convenient ways to get context
“I like to form my own opinion about art, but it can be hard to do that when I don’t really know anything about the artist, or what their intentions were in creating the work.”
— Museum/Art Gallery Visitor
The Tour Guide Perspective
The sprint materials also included an interview with a museum tour guide about her interactions with visitors. This offered further insights into visitor needs.
Insights
Visitors need expert guidance to appreciate art on a deeper level
Deep appreciation of art involves forming personal connections with it
Forming personal connections with art can be highly fulfilling
“At the end of the day ... artwork is really meant to also sort of understand yourself in an interesting way.”
— Museum Tour Guide
User Persona
The exercise materials included a simple user persona meant to focus my thinking on the needs of potential users of the app I was about to design.
The Budding Art Enthusiast
Young junior art director in New York City
Behavior
Enjoys going to museums by herself
Prefers seeing new exhibits
Prefers not researching art ahead of time
Goal
A simple way of learning more about art on her own while in a museum so she makes the most of her visit
Inspiration
Considering how best to design an app to help the user persona achieve her goal, I consulted other apps for interacting with art. Three were especially relevant.
National Gallery of Art
Museum Map App
Facilitates exploration of the museum by orienting users in the building
Describes rooms and art
Lists “must see” art
Offers text and audio descriptions of art
Smartify
Art Identification App
Accesses the user’s camera to identify art
Offers interactive explorations of art
Offers shop with items from many institutions
DailyArt
Art Learning App
Offers interactive explorations of art
Links to related or recommended art
Links to further reading
Allows users to curate lists of favorite art
Design
Crazy Eights
Drawing ideas from these three app types, I used the “crazy eights” technique to brainstorm eight very different ways to help the user persona achieve her goal. My sketches ranged from a practical, if dull, solution inspired by Wikipedia to a more fanciful one inspired on the augmented reality game Pokémon GO.
Choosing the Best
The solutions I’d generated varied widely in terms of their creativity and practicality for institutions to implement. I wanted to design an app that was engaging for users but could also readily be turned into a reality. I chose to pursue the solution that seemed most balanced and began sketching the major screens.
Storyboards
Next I needed to prepare a thorough map of how users would progress through the app so I could understand the various interactions I had to design.
Moodboard
I had a sense of the app’s architecture, but I still needed decide on a visual look, so I gathered imagery reflecting key ideas that the app should convey to users.
Ideas
Self-directed enrichment
Self-reliance
Discovery
Friendly guidance
Imagery suggested muted colors and simple, unobtrusive visuals that wouldn’t distract users from the art in front of them.
UIs
Prototype
Using the storyboards and moodboard as guides, I built an interactive prototype of the main app screens in Figma to test with potential users and gather feedback.
Map
A map of the current museum/gallery, which serves as a home screen
Key Features
Building/floor selector
Search box for finding spaces and art
Buttons that reveal space details and directions
“Locate me” button that resets the map to the user’s current location
Must See
A list of important or popular works of art in the current museum/gallery
Key Features
Building/floor selector that shows art by location
Search box for finding art
Buttons that open the map and show directions
Examine
An augmented-reality camera feed that highlights details of art in front of the user
Key Features
Header with basic details of the art
Dialogue box with brief text about the art
Bold outlines to focus the user’s attention
“Add to favorites” button
“Audio guide” button
Favorites
A list of works of art selected by the user to revisit later and explore further
Functionality
Building/floor selector that shows favorited art by location
Search box for finding favorited art
Buttons that expand sections to reveal a location button plus links to literature and merchandise
Validation
Usability Tests
I recruited five people, ages 20 to 40, and gave them tasks to perform with the prototype. Test subjects had varying degrees of familiarity with museums and art galleries, some identifying as art lovers and some not.
Key Findings
Participants successfully completed all tasks, validating the design
Participants appreciated how the app facilitated access to information, and they requested access to even more
Participants appreciated how they could curate a list of favorite works of art, and they requested additional ways of customizing the app
“Being able to have a guide like this in your own hands ups accessibility.”
— Test Subject
I now have not only a design and user data confirming that the design is a viable solution, but I also have ideas for how to refine the design.
Prototype
Insights
A clear process is essential
Particularly during a creativity sprint, a designer may feel compelled to show off their creativity or, fixating on the time crunch, to default to whatever existing patterns come to mind first, even if they aren’t ideal. Mapping out a design process helps the designer focus on user needs rather than themselves.
The app itself isn’t the user’s goal
It’s tempting to make something glamorous when designing an app, especially one related to art. But if the point of the app is to facilitate action in the physical world, then the app shouldn’t try to compete for the user’s attention.
Familiar patterns help users
Especially for an app like GalleryPal, it’s important not to force users to learn new patterns unless absolutely necessary. Incorporating existing ones into a design can help users pick up an app and start using it straightaway.