Gallery Pal
Design Sprint
Creating a Digital Museum Companion
For this Google Venture style rapid design sprint, I spent a week creating an art gallery companion app designed to increase the experiential satisfaction of people visiting a museum.
Problem
Many visitors feel disconnected or struggle to combine context, background, and appreciation for art.
Solution
A digital guide and interactive map with predefined paths and relevant information about each piece of art: Gallery Pal.
Role
Mapped, sketched, developed, prototyped, and tested how an app might provide a more engaging and appreciative in-person art gallery experience.
(1).png)
The User
After a quick rundown of the problem space and what a few art gallery customers had to say I constructed a quick persona to stay connected with the intended users and what their current motivations and struggles are.
Mapping
Every step from admission to departure was taken into consideration as user needs and personas drove mapping and solution development. Many user stories bemoaned a lack of relevant and readily available information about the art pieces. These factors were taken into consideration when conceptualizing the ideal experience.
Art gallery visitors often arrive with no information on the artwork that is displayed and are there to learn more about it.
Museum goers frequently engage in on-the-spot research about the art, utilizing Google or other search engines to provide a synopsis of these broad topics with limited context.
People are interested in provenance and would enjoy learning about the artist's techniques or hearing an experts opinion.
Lightning Demos
Secondary research into the world of paintings, sculpture, and portraiture uncovered a variety of new tools and a soon a general picture of the market began to surface. I examined a dozen different products, and selected three to "draw" my design and layout inspiration from.
Sketches
Brain Storming
The crazy eight brainstorming activity helped to generate and purge possible solutions, features, and concepts that could trigger ideas and layouts for a cohesive clear interface.
Quick Sketches and Flow
A three-frame sketch depicts (unsurprisingly) the three main screens: Map, Art Piece, and an Artist Info Page. An interactive tapable map reveals the background, techniques, and other information about the era the piece was created in.
Storyboarding
Sketches of a guided experience began to surface and a map-like format evolved. Maps guide the user through an experience that builds upon its self creating a more cohesive art experience. This educational aspect provides information on the artist, technique, history, and primary creative influences of the time.
Creating a storyboard helped visualize the most important elements on each screen
High Fidelity Mock-ups
High fidelity mock-ups came together fast with navigation prioritizing access to the homepage, scan feature, and map. Keeping design modest and clean, striving for a distinguished look while staying true to brand colors.
Prototyping & Animation
A high fidelity prototype highlighting designated reroutes was created to demonstrate actual flow and function. The integration of progressive disclosure guides the user through fun and historic facts pertaining to the art piece and its creator.
Usability Testing
Feedback! After designing and planning a research session usability testing began. A nice takeaway was depth - people wanted to click on everything, and it was clear that deeper navigation would need to be architected, designed, and integrated into a final version.
-
“Add more pizazz.”
-
“It's fun! What a nice guide to have during a museum visit.”
-
“The pictures provide a great indicator that I'm reading about the right piece”
-
“I like the context that the artists background provides.”
Usability Testing Findings
-
Test findings indicated that a larger more interactive map would be more user friendly.
-
100% of users were able to successful navigate through prototyped reroutes.
-
Observations from the usability testing gave insight into areas that could be flushed out, perfected, or possibly removed.
Reflection & Future Steps
The Gallery Pal experience has outlined a gallery companion solution though it still has a long journey of information architecture construction, user testing, and screen iterations ahead.
Creating a concept this quickly was a fun challenge, I enjoyed working on a product to make culture more approachable and connect people with art. Future directions for this project would include another churn of high fidelity screen iterations, usability testing and user interviews. Information architecture needs to be built out and red-routes could be reexamined.