App UX Design Sprint

Client: GalleryPal Product: Gallery companion mobile app Duration: 5 days

For this project, I followed an adapted GV design sprint, where I developed this final product alone in about 5 days. The challenge was to create a mobile app for improving the in-person art viewing experience of museum or gallery visitors.

Case Study

The challenge of this Bitesize UX design sprint project was to create a mobile app for improving the in-person art viewing experience of museum or gallery visitors. For the design process, I followed an adapted GV design sprint, where I developed this final product alone in about 5 days. Here, I will share my process, the solution I created, and what I learned from the results and the GV sprint methodology.

Day 1 — Mapping

My research synthesis revealed that most gallery visitor complaints cluster around getting the best insight on the artists and context in which their art was made. Visitors become disengaged when they feel disconnected from the artistic techniques and backstory behind the particular pieces.

I formulated problem questions to guide my exploration: “How might we reimagine the in-person art-viewing experience for gallery visitors? How can we better engage museum-goers' curiosity? With the lightning speed of technological evolution, what’s next for how we reconnect with the past through art and artifacts?” The end goal would be to design a mobile app that involves museum-goers’ in the human context of exhibitions, creating a much more satisfying experience where visitors leave feeling connected with the artwork and fulfilled by their visit.

Day 2 — Sketching

I began day 2 by taking inspiration from popular apps, art history apps, museum apps, and tour guide websites. I also looked at reviews of museum apps to see what users found lacking.

Google Maps — Since GalleryPal needed to provide information and guidance for users on-the-go, I looked to the most poplar app with a similar functionality, GoogleMaps. As we all know, Google Maps is one of the most widely-used apps in the world, so I knew taking design cues from Google Maps would improve my app’s accessibility due to user familiarity. I took particular interest in how Google Maps presents so many different types of information without being overwhelming.

Google Arts & Culture App — Google Arts & Culture is one of my favorite apps. It has a ton of unique & exciting features including the ability to scan a picture, statue, or display and pull up related information. It seems to me that image scanning is an unbeatable solution for visitors looking to quickly engage with a specific artwork—making this feature is a must have for GalleryPal. For the purposes of this design sprint, I also focused on the individual art details pages for inspiration. I found the layout and the amount of information and options to be ideal; not too overwhelming, not too spare.

Barnesfoc.us — “Barnes Focus” is the viewing companion service offered by one of my favorite local art museums, the Barnes Foundation. I found the interface to be appealing and straightforward, and the image scanning service to be intuitive and effective. However, the presentation of artwork information is no more engaging than the standard unappealing museum plaque.

Based on my research, users want a tool that would enable them to explore exhibitions in their own way, at their own pace, without missing out on the depth of insight and personal engagement offered by traditional guided museum tours. To meet this need, there were a few key functions to consider, in order of priority:

1. Image search — image scanning is the most efficient and straightforward way to meet users' primary need--to quickly access engaging information about a specific artwork.

2. Location and directions — navigation is one of the most daunting challenges for museum visitors exploring on their own, and map pamphlets are famously confusing. Users need to be able see their current location within the museum on a map, and reliable directions to other exhibitions, specific artworks, bathrooms, etc.

3. Social — the majority of art museum visitors are adults accompanied by other adults. Any addition to the museum-going experience must facilitate “quality time” spent with friends and family. 

After considering these designs and ideas, I did a Crazy 8s exercise and sketched eight versions of my product’s potential key frames, spending no more than 1 minute on each.

Day 3 — Storyboarding

Next, I created story boards to envision the user journey. While I had a ton of exciting ideas about the possible features,, the purpose of the design sprint is to design and test only one main idea. I had to limit my focus to the most important function of the app, which I had identified on day 2: “Image search: image scanning is the most efficient and straightforward way to meet users' primary need--to quickly access engaging information about a specific artwork.”

For the product of this design sprint, I determined that the user flow would simply start with the image scanning screen to get users engaged as quickly as possible. The camera page flows into the art details screen, where the user can find interesting information about the artwork, artist, artistic technique, and also see nearby artwork. The art details screen can be closed or minimized to return the user to the scanner.

Day 4 — Prototyping

The prototype needed to be intuitive, easy to use, and visually appealing. Working quickly prevented me from second-guessing my design choices and enabled me to be decisive and direct. While there are several design decisions I would like to revisit, the goal of the GV design sprint is to rapidly generate a prototype for user testing.

The prototype opens with the art scanning process simulation. This quickly flows into the art setails page/drawer, which gives visitors the main points of the scanned artwork in their hand and also engages their curiosity with “fascinating facts.” I hypothesized that my design would address users' feelings of disengagement, boredom, and lack of personal connection with artwork. Having built the prototype, I was ready to test.

Day 5 — Testing & Results

I conducted 6 moderated tests with users in line with GalleryPal’s target demographic; all test users had visited a museum or gallery within the last year and identified as art appreciators. During testing, I explained the function of the screens that simulated the art scanning process to avoid confusion. All users were able to intuitively navigate through the prototype without any confusion and complete all tasks. Users felt the design was easy to read and understand, and esthetically pleasing. User testing results indicated that there were only a few areas for improvement, all relating to bugs in the prototype rather than design choices; for example, due to the current limits of prototyping programs, I had to use an imperfect work around to make the art details page’s main carousel draggable to both the right and left. Due to user’s expectations based on familiarity with the google maps interface, I did not want to leave this out or else users may interpret the app as broken. However, the current solution required users to intuitively click and drag on the left side of a card to navigate left, and the right side of a card to navigate right. This proved to be non-intuitive for some users.

Given that this was a sprint, it would have been a task to mock up every feature I had in mind in the given time, and to do so would be missing the point. I believe the MVP proves the concept and meets the challenge, but I do recognize how this would be an unfinished full product.

Reflection

I enjoyed this modified GV design sprint. I typically try for perfection, even while sketching, and this process enabled me to select an idea and develop it without turning back. With future projects, I will place greater value on efficiency and progress rather than perfection.

I succeeded in creating a useful tool for the target users—something simple and appealing that answers the question “how might we improve the in-person art-viewing experience for museum visitors?” The minor issues I had were either not design related or unavoidable due to the restrictions of prototype design. The overall user experience of my testers was overwhelmingly positive and confirmed that I had answered this challenge with an effective and user-friendly product.