Amicart: Connecting Artists with Artists
Industry
Education
Duration
2 months
Roles
Research
Branding
UI/UX Design
Prototyping
Usability Testing
Amicart. A website where artists can connect, critique, collaborate, and share events.
Amicart is an independent design project for a website that allows artists to find and message each other, critique artwork and receive critiques, collaborate on projects, and find and share events. The name comes from "amicus" which means friend in Latin and "art."
First Steps
The Problem
Artists want to connect with each other.
In the face of the unrealistic expectations of social media and the rise of AI art, artists want to connect with real people in the creative process and find encouragement and support.
While social media platforms exist, non allow artists to connect through individual profiles and local events.
Survey Findings
Conversations and experience as a fellow artist led to the idea of a platform where artists could find community. Community is found from talking with people who share the same passions and from meeting people at events that inspire.
They also wanted a platform to be where professionals and aspiring professionals could find assistance and feedback. The focus was mutual support in the ways that matter to artists.
Competitor Analysis
A competitor analysis revealed which was done well and could be improved on by similar social media or networking platforms for artists. Non had the combination of features offered in Amicart.
The Goal
Design a creative finder that allows users to collaborate with other artists, publish events, and receive critiques. This gives users such as artists, event hosts, students to create profiles and submit events, projects, and work.
Design Implementation Goals
Find other artists they want to talk to
Find and share collaborative projects
Ask for and receive critiques
Share and search for events
Primary User Personas
User Journey Map
Preliminary Designs
Big Picture Storyboard
This storyboard shows the son of the user persona facing problems in education and using the app with the guidance of his mother to get back on track at school.
Brainstorming Solutions
I explored various ways of searching for exhibits, how to display profiles, how to account for different kinds of artists. I also had to consider what artists were using at the moment. How are they succeeding and how are they falling short?
Internal Architecutre
During the idea process, the website started turning toward a more cozy, small artist website, but when really keeping users in mind I realized the website needed to keep a certain level of professionalism to attract artists creating and advertising events and artists looking for collaborators on serious projects.
This led to maintaining a cleaner design instead of the rounded design I began learning toward.
Wireframe
Testing
Methodology
Individuals with experience hiring tutors, tutoring, and receiving tutoring were asked to:
Complete various tasks and voice their thoughts aloud in the presence of an interviewer.
Complete a System Usability Scale.
Condensed Results
User testing revealed:
confusion because of copy
The Profile section not meeting expectations
Confusion on the categories in the message section
I chose to perfect the collaboration user path because that got at the heart of the website, communal artistry.
Mockups and Round Two Testing
A high fidelity prototype were made in Figma, addressing the issues that arose from the first round of testing. The prototype includes the homepage with clickable popups of the main features of the website and a complete user-flow for submitting a collaboration request.
Another round of usability testing took place, leading to design changes that helped make the artist pop-up less cluttered.
High Fidelity Prototype
Impact and Next Steps
Original Goals Realized
Ability to search for artists and filter by medium, role, and tags
Ability to post and search for collaborations with advanced filters
Ability to give and request critiques
Ability to post and search for exhibits, and filter in a clear way
What I Learned
Internal Architecture - constructing intuitive sections and labels
Competitive Research Analysis - how to synthesize competitive research and create usable insights
Iterative Design - designs went through multiple iterations and testings before they reached the current state
Impact
SUS increased by 12%
Next Steps
the messaging section needs to have clearer copy for the sections
the copy for the critique options also needs to be clearer
further testing on the message collection process after an exhibition post needs to take place