Art gallery Website Design

Project overview

The product:

The product: Gallery SO INTL is an art gallery in the center of Tokyo, and has a satellite in Singapore. The gallery established in 1970s and has many frequent visitors; from business women to art students. The gallery represents various international artists and regularly holds exhibitions featuring artists. Their artist catalog is evolving as the gallery welcomes emerging artists, too.

Project duration:

June 2022

The problem:

Users don’t want to miss exhibitions and related events. Some users forget to make schedule while browsing the website.

The goal:

The art gallery’s website to be user friendly by providing clear navigation and offering a quick scheduling feature.

Responsibilities:

Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs and responsive design.

My role:

UX designer leading the art gallery’s website design.

Understanding the user

●User research

●Personas

●Problem statements

●User journey maps

User research: summary

I conducted user interviews, which I then turned into empathy maps to better understand the target user and their needs. A primary user group identified through research was frequent visitors of the gallery. I discovered that many target users enjoy browsing the images of artworks and infomations, and start thinking to visit the gallery. However, users do not make schedule and eventually miss exhibitions and events that they wanted to go. The gallery is not open 24h/7, and an artist’s special event is usually a one-time opportunity, cannot be missed. Since the gallery is free, booking is unnecessary.

Pain points

1 Scheduling

Users don’t want to missexhibitions

2 Visual

Users enjoy images of artworks

3 Navigation

Long booking system is not expected

Persona

Meg is a busy business woman who like to visit museum when she have free time. But she sometimes forget to make schedule and eventually miss the exhibition.

User journey map

I created a user journey map of Meg’s experience using the site to help identify possible pain points and improvement opportunities.

Problem Statement

Meg is an accountant manager who needs know schedule on ongoing art exhibition at the gallery and need remainder because she only have limited free time and don’t want to miss exhibition and events at the gallery.

Starting the design

●Sitemap

●Paper wireframes

●Digital wireframes

●Low-fidelity prototype

●Usability studies

Sitemap

The main contents is exhibition and artist pages because users enjoy the images of art works. I organised the basic contents in the hierarchical order with fewer menus to reach desired pages easily. I planned to add calendar feature in the exhibition page so that users won’t forget scheduling.

Paper wireframes

Next, I sketched out paper wireframes for each screen, keeping the user pain points about navigation, browsing, and checkout flow in mind. The home screen paper wireframe variations to the right focus on optimizing the browsing experience for users.

Because usera access the site on a variety of different devices, I started to work on designs for additional screen sizes to make sure the site would be fully responsive.

Digital wireframes

Moving from paper to digital wireframes made it easy to understand how the redesign could help address user pain points and improve the user experience. Prioritizing useful button locations and visual element placement on the home page was a key part of my strategy.

Digital wireframe screen size variation(s)

Low-fidelity prototype

To create a low-fidelity prototype, I connected all of the screens involved in the primary user flow of adding the exhibition schedule to users calender. At this point, I had received feedback on my designs from members of my team about things like placement of buttons and page organization. I made sure to listen to their feedback, and I implemented several suggestions in places that addressed user pain points.

>View low-fidelity prototype

Usability study: parameters

Study type: Unmoderated usability study

Participants: 5 participants

Location: Japan remote

Length: 20-30 minutes

Findings

1 Text on image

Texts on the hero image was difficult to read

2 Text and color

Font size for texts was too small to read Color for easy navigation is needed

3 Menu

”News” on menu bar was unnecessary as it is on the homepage

Refining the design

●Mockups

●High-fidelity prototype

●Accessibility

Mockups

Before/after usability study

Based on the insights from the usability study, I made changes to improve the flow. One of the changes I made was to place while rectangular on the hero image so that the texts is readable.

Before/after usability study

Enlarged the texts and margins. Added accent color to make the design consistent

Before/after usability study

The “News” button on the menu bar is removed because news contents are already on the homepage.

Screen size variations

I included considerations for additional screen sizes in my mockups based on my earlier wireframes. Because users shop from a variety of devices, I felt it was important to optimize the browsing experience for a range of device sizes, such as mobile so users have the smoothest experience possible.

High-fidelity prototype

My hi-fi prototype followed the same user flow as the lo-fi prototype, and included the design changes made after the usability study, as well as several changes suggested by members of my team. View high-fidelity prototype

>View high-fidelity prototype

Accessibility considerations

I used headings with different sized text for clear visual hierarchy

I used landmarks to help users navigate the site, including users who rely on assistive technologies

I designed the website in three language, so that the international user (visitor) confortably brouse the website

Going forward

●Takeaways

●Next steps

Takeways

Impact:

The target users shared that the design was visually pleasing and meet their needs. Main functions of the website are scheduling the exhibition and brousing the images.

What I learned:

I learned that even a small design change can have a huge impact on the user experience. The most important takeaway for me is to always focus on the real needs of the user when coming up with design ideas and solutions.

Next steps

Conduct follow-up usability testing on the new website

Identify any additional areas of need and ideate on new features

Identify how the website can work together with mobile app