GalleryPal

Not long ago, our client GalleryPal presented us with a problem: how can we increase a visitor’s satisfaction while viewing art (paintings, sculptures, installations, other common mediums) in order to improve their experience at a museum or gallery? While this may seem like a straightforward request, it leads to several disparate questions: what does the average visitor look for when viewing art? What information do they seek? Do they perform preliminary research on the artist or exhibit? In order to narrow down our focus, several rounds of user research were performed along with an expert interview in order to fully understand the needs of our user base.

On its face the two facets of the research may appear to contradict one another, but they truly work in tandem. Rather than simply espousing facts and figures, which is what our users state they wish to know, the true way to encourage further engagement is by focusing on the visitor’s “quality time” with the art and supplementing it with a variety of information that allows them to enhance their personal opinion towards the piece and understand a greater context behind the work itself.

From the research, several users had detailed that while they may have performed some initial research before visiting the museum most of the information gleaned on a specific work was based on information at the gallery or museum itself. Further, while some users wished to draw conclusions on their own, many appreciated an “expert” take on the pieces in order to guide their own understanding. This may come from a tour guide, placard, or even the curator, but they enjoyed receiving an authoritative opinion before drawing their conclusions.
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These sentiments were largely echoed by our expert on the case, a tour guide at the Museum of Natural History. In their interview, they said guests appreciated “fun facts,” a “tragic history” of the artist, and a story behind the art itself as it provides as much context as possible behind the art. All that being said, they believe it is best when a visitor approaches the work with as much of a blank slate as possible as it allows them to draw their own conclusions on the art. Along the same line, they believe that the visitors should spend as much time as possible looking closely at the work and reflecting on what it means to them. This helps the visitor pick up on any details that may have been overlooked with a quick pass over the piece. For our expert, this element was extremely important because “art is meant to help you understand yourself even more.”

In order to accomplish this initial goal, we utilized NFC technology in order for the product to know what art piece you are actively viewing. However, if we present the information about the art immediately it could prevent the user from truly appreciating the art itself. In order to force the user into viewing the piece from a critical lens, we also applied a 30 second timer that encourages the user to examine, study, and connect with the piece so they have a better understanding of what they are viewing. While this part may seem trivial, it is important that we have our user actually view and understand the art so, as our expert said, they can understand more about themselves.
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After this initial phase, we then present the user with a brief description/explanation of the work as well as deeper dives into the artist’s biography, the technique behind the work, some expert perspectives, and related pieces. Within these sections, we offer more information predominantly via audio guides rather than written pieces. The choice behind this is, once again, to encourage further engagement with the art itself rather than words describing the art.

From our research, we understood that we needed to create a product that encourages that “quality time” with the work as well as providing enough context for our audience. With this, we came to the decision that the focus of the product should be the art and not the product in and of itself. What this means is that we wish to nudge our users to continue appreciating the work and spend less time looking up information, reading said information, and moving on to the next piece. The purpose of our product is to increase engagement with the art itself, not our product. For us, that begins with a seamless transition from information to art appreciation.

After we completed our design, a quick usability test was performed utilizing a test piece from the MoMA. From these tests, we discovered that our users would be more likely to visit a museum thanks to the product as well as would be more likely to enjoy the overall experience at a museum or gallery as they would not “walk around without knowing what they were looking at.”

In particular, users singled out the breadth of audio content over text content. It reminded them of the traditional audio guides found at museums but more refined, allowing them to dive deeper into a particular area rather than receiving an overview normally found in traditional audio guides.
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Moving forward, the next steps for GalleryPal involve a continuing education platform that allows our users to learn more about the artist, an artistic movement, or specific technique after leaving the museum or gallery and receive notifications when something is placed on display that meets their criteria of interest.

This project was created as part of a Design Sprint for the Springboard UI/UX Design Bootcamp.

The design prompt and research subjects were provided by Bitesize UX.

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