Art galleries often lack detailed background information about the works on display, making the visitor experience less in-depth and engaging. However, an art gallery app with artist biographies can help visitors gain a better understanding of the artworks and a stronger connection to the artists and their art.
Task:
Design of an app with artist biographies for an art gallery
The goal:
To create an app that not only informs visitors about current exhibitions, but also provides detailed background information about the artists and their biographies.
My role: UX designer
Project duration: 10/24-01/25
Responsibilities:
Conducting interviews, creating paper and digital wireframes, low and high fidelity prototypes, conducting usability studies, considering accessibility and iterating designs.
Summary:
I conducted competitive analysis and developed personas and empathy maps to better understand the users and their needs. I identified the primary target audience and their challenges. I also created interview questions in preparation for a usability study. The findings were used in further iterations to optimise the design.
User Research
Personas are fictional characters that represent the goals and characteristics of a larger user group
Problem description:
Sabine is an art teacher and needs illustrative material for field trips with her students. She wants to make art more accessible and encourage creativity.
Storyboards provide a visual representation of how a user will interact with a product.
Big Picture Storyboards focus on the user’s overall experience, including their context, needs and emotional engagement.
Close Up Storyboards focus on specific product details and user interactions, often used in later design stages.
Wireframes
A low-fidelity wireframe is a simple sketch of a user interface that helps you plan out the basic structure and layout of a website or app.
Link zum → Low-Fidelity-Prototyp
Affinity maps are used to visually organise and group information, ideas or data. They can be used to recognise patterns and relationships within qualitative data, e.g. from user interviews, surveys or brainstorming sessions.
Usability study: Results
Results of study 1
- Users want service navigation that is always visible, with information on opening times, ticket prices and contact details.
- To avoid long lists, items should also be able to scroll horizontally.
Results of study 2
- It should be possible for individual works of art to be enlarged in a light box.
- The service navigation should only cover part of the screen as an overlay so you don’t get lost.
Mock-ups
The results of the usability studies have been incorporated into the mock-ups: A service navigation was added at the bottom. It is visible on every screen and stands out from the rest of the pages as an overlay. Horizontal sliders have been added for better viewing of the artworks. Individual works of art can be enlarged in a lightbox.
High-Fidelity Prototype
View the high-fidelity prototype for more details
→ Link NOVA-Prototyp
Consideration of barrier-free accessibility
- The texts have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 so that users with visual impairments can also use the app.
- A service navigation has been added at the bottom. It provides quick access to ticket prices, opening hours and contact details.
- Touch-friendly navigation: buttons and links are large enough to be operated comfortably with the thumb
