Adding an online art exhibition feature to the existing panorama sharing platform
Visualpathy Artroom
Background
Introduction
This project was commissioned by the Visualpathy startup team. As a panoramic sharing platform, they wanted to add a new feature of art exhibitions for their web, in order to increase traffic to the site and enrich their contents. I connected their team with emerging art curators. Because of limited resources and funding, These young curators often curate exhibitions located in remote suburbs, which neither have sufficient audiences nor enough impact.
Existing Website
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Visualpathy (startup:2015-2020)
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The VisualPathy.com 360 Photography technology allows you to create, embed, and share 360 Photo and 360 Degree Video.
It coincided with the product Visualpathy was trying to develop. It would allow these niche exhibitions to be posted on their platform, preserving them forever and accessible to audiences anywhere, regardless of geographic location, and sharing via social media to increase visibility and impact.
A win-win situation for all parties.
Overview
Industry
Online/Digital Exhibition, Art and Culture, Visual Reality, Startup
Tools
Figma, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Illustrator
Challenge
How do we create interactive and engaging experiences that are Digital first?
How do we differentiate online exhibitions from onsite exhibitions?
Duration
May-Jun, 2017, Around 80 hours
Process
Research → Ideation → Design → Test → Launch
The Product
Through the help of VR technology, the website can better demonstrate site-specific artworks digitally, which help to build up a ‘contextual understanding’ of works and objects. Overall, it delivers experiences online combined with onsite visits, that offer value and are meaningful to the participants.
Team/Role
Shane Pan(Founder and Product Manager)
Yan Wang(Product Designer)
Naiyi Wang(Curator)
Boyang Xia(Graphic Designer)
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Corroborated with the startup founder and shaped product guidelines. Accounted for developing an effective UX strategy based on synthesized insights from background research, market landscape, and product design standards.
Conducted rapid prototype designs for efficient and accurate validation and iterations and designed the entire website.
Presented comprehensive research insights to stakeholders and hosted multi-group meeting series to discuss opportunities.
Goal Statement:
The product enables art lovers to have an immersive exhibition experience anytime, anywhere. It also increases the exposure of small, remote exhibitions, with the goal of attracting new customers to the existing Visualpathy website.
Problem Statement:
Online exhibitions have become increasingly more popular at a very fast rate. Due to time and travel constraints, art lovers can't reach remote locations to see niche exhibitions that only last for a short time.
Design Outcome
Research
A digital-first exhibition that enriches and prolongs the in-gallery experience, a valuable and meaningful place for innovation, experimentation, and discovery for a larger audience by providing different types of engaging experiences.
Preliminary Survey
We conduct a preliminary survey with 20 participants to understand if the online exhibition feature was a valid hypothesis:
80% are interested in the feature;
10% are not interested in the feature;
10% don’t know.
Considerations
Advantages of Digital First Exhibition
Curating content to a large audience is the main argument for creating exhibitions online.
Make space and time for innovation, experimentation, and discovery.
Offer different types of experiences
Quotes
As Kajsa Hartig (Head of Museum Experience and Collections at Västernorrlands museum) put it :
Online, not just as a digital representation of the in-gallery experience, or as marketing, but as an experience that delivers value in itself.
Initial Goal
We define it as a digital-first exhibition that enriches and prolongs the in-gallery experience, a valuable and meaningful place for innovation, experimentation, and discovery for a larger audience by providing different types of engaging experiences.
Digital Arenas
The rising demand for a seamless experience bridges onsite and online, and invites the audience to participate and co-creation.
Secondary Research
Collect opposite opinions from Tweeters
Conclusion
Differentiate online exhibitions from an onsite museum experience.
Ideation
How?
Make education entertaining with the idea of the ‘magic circle’ that equips users with “superpowers”, borrowed from game studies.
To achieve this goal, we need to figure out what values an exhibition can bring. Based on Colleen Dillenschneider’s research: Education justifies visitation, and Entertainment drives visitor satisfaction and re-visitation. Although there is always a debate between providing an entertaining experience or an educational experience for visitors. In reality, two forces are not at odds with one another. What we need to do is to make education entertaining.
Borrowed an idea from game studies of the ‘magic circle’, and that visitors should feel that they have superpowers. What can a ‘superpower’ be?
It could be
‘See/feel the past’ through various (new) media technologies.
Learning through doing. Interaction creates ‘visitor chemistry’
Transmedia storytelling
‘Own’ memory archives
………..
Meet a confliction
Developers: “It is cool…but we need something more effortless.”
Adding more gamification and interaction to the exhibition experience will face great development difficulties. The significant investment in time and capital cost is complex for a startup firm, as long as it prevents the product from being released on time. Therefore, it may cause a potential business failure, which is unacceptable.
Reframe Goal
1. How might we create interactive and engaging experiences that are Digital first?
2. How might we differentiate online exhibitions from onsite exhibitions?
How might we quickly deliver an engaging digital-first exhibition experience different from onsite exhibitions with little investment in technical development？
Step into common ground
Visitor superpowers do not need to be granted by technology. It might simply be being able to have a ‘contextual understanding’ of works and objects or comfort in being challenged by new ideas.
Design Solution
Folks are most engaged in the beginning, so an exhibition designed in an inverted pyramid structure can better align with audiences’ attention span.
Break linear progression model
Traditionally, exhibits tend to be linear. They consist of the introduction of a topic, then gradually adding detail and information, and then arriving at a key takeaway or conclusion at the end of the exhibit. However, based on the research aim to figure out when folks are most engaged in an exhibit, putting the most important information at the end of the experience is the exact opposite of the audience's attention span. The right structure would be journalism’s well-established inverted pyramid. This model stresses starting with the most important takeaways and then building a depth of support from there.
Site Map
The creation of a sitemap was fundamental for the development of the new feature to see how this could be integrated into the already existing structure of the website.
A short blank moment to embrace a digital mindset.
Architects will set up a transition space to separate them to create a clear distinction between the outside and the inside. Borrowed the same concept and transferred to digital experience， an extra step, or a blank moment, is necessary for visitors to clear their minds and be ‘immersive’ in the show. It is different from what a UX designer usually pursues - minimizing the steps to achieve a goal.
Task Flow
I started empathizing with users by creating a task to understand how she would explore a digital exhibition.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes & Prototype
Usability Test
Prepare for the Usability Testing
Once the prototype was ready, I conducted 5 remote usability testing via Zoom. 3 participants are from Visualpathy and 2 participants are curators. I asked participants to complete a few tasks on the prototype I created in Figma. I wanted to observe how users interacted with and navigated the web.
Observation
90% of the users can complete all the requested tasks.
90% of the users like the separation from the main site.
100% think the feature adds more content to the existing web.
Insights
Each artwork is not clearly demonstrated in 3D space, and users need to be able to see specific details.
Recommends
Make 3D records（panorama photo） of three-dimensional works and connect them to the 360 photos of the exhibition space.
Due to the team's current technical constraints, it is not yet possible to directly click on the artwork among 360 photos and enlarge it for viewing. Therefore, there is a need to rethink how to connect the space and the artworks inside.
Iteration
Design
Design System
High-Fidelity Wireframes & Prototype
Key Pages
Next Steps
Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of need.
Conduct follow-up usability testing on the new website.
Add clickable feature to 360 VR content. Virtual reality is not a strategy on its own. Instead, we need to put valuable content inside, considering how the engagement method fits into the bigger picture and what it aims to accomplish.
Now, in the post-pandemic era, how can we bring new opportunities to the platform through design when people are even more comfortable with various online affairs? In addition, VR content-sharing platforms will welcome more users, so is it a good idea to have an NFT market for artists to sell their works?
Takeaway
I learned that the first ideas for the app are only the beginning of the process. Usability studies and peer feedback influenced each iteration of the app’s designs.
To better cooperated with developers, what I learn from this project is “communication, communication, and communication” from the beginning, all the way through the whole process.
Also, technology is just a tool that helps our visitors. It can enhance the onsite experience when we put audience behaviors, expectations, and experiences first. Virtual reality is exciting and may provide significant opportunities!