Art Gallery App
The project involved the design of an art gallery app through which it is possible to have an overview of the itineraries and book a guided tour at the preferred time.
November 2021 - February 2022
User research, wireframing, prototyping, usability studies, user interface design
Problem
Often, the process of booking a guided tour, especially for large groups, is seen as a long and inaccessible process. The app aims to simplify this process.
Goal
The goal is to provide users with a simple and immediate booking experience and to be able to book in advance, thus avoiding queues and formalities at the entrance.
Knowing the target
I conducted interviews to better understand the users for whom I am designing and their needs. A primary group identified was made up of teachers of young students who might want to find an alternative way to offer their students a museum experience.
My research has also revealed that there is another group of people willing to have access to an extraordinary experience in the museum but are sometimes discouraged by the higher prices to access it: I am talking about out-of-school students, part-time workers, and students generally from 18 to 25 years old.
I also met families with children between 7 and 9 years old who often have difficulty giving them an interesting experience in museums, ending up preferring trips to other places of entertainment.
I decided to focus on the first two groups of people to build my characters.
Design
User Journey Map
While I was focusing on Daniela, the school teacher who wants to organize an engaging museum trip so that her students become passionate about art, I came across this user journey map:
Paper Wireframes
The first pen sketches to gather ideas for the app. From the beginning, I wanted to design a simple and minimal app because I wanted to give a lot of space to the museum images.
Digital Wireframes
I started designing the beginning of the flow by giving users the option to choose their language; then the user can proceed to the main page, which is the home page.
The main booking process is described below, where users can choose their own day and time by filling out the form.
Low Fidelity Prototype
The user flow starts on the language page, then you can continue to the itineraries page to view itineraries and then book a visit.
Usability Studies
After the last analysis carried out with users, design problems emerged that prevented the correct use and user experience.
First Round
1. Users need better instructions on where to click;
2. Users feel the need to add additional information about their visit
3. It is not clear to all users how to save the programming through the confirmation page
Second Round
1. The booking page may still seem very poor
2. Understand if there are services missing on the confirmation page.
Refining the design
Mockups
Starting from the theme that it is not clear to all users how to save or send the booking via buttons, an intuition is: we must design a better confirmation page to make it clear to users where the links they need are located.
Mockups
Since users stated that they did not feel safe to proceed with the payment, I changed the experience by providing prices and more space between items
Mockups
Based on the theme that a section without a button is not easy to find for most users, an intuition is: users need better instructions on where to click.The idea of adding buttons was therefore to simplify the understanding of sections.
High Fidelity Prototype
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including the design changes made after usability studies, and a preference quiz was also added.
Re-design
A few months later, I decided to work again on the design of the app to enrich the museum visitors' experience through augmented reality.
After the latest changes, it will be possible to see on the smartphone display the environment in which the user is located through the phone camera. This will be able to recognize the museum attractions in the frame and present detailed descriptions of them to provide insights and curiosities about what the visitor is admiring live.
I also chose to make changes to the user interface by implementing changes to the chosen palette and fonts, as well as to the main elements of the app that influence the user experience.
Accessibility Considerations
Buttons
The buttons have a higher contrast to avoid any problems experienced by visually impaired or dyslexic users.
Starting Points
Users have the option to resume the interrupted flow from different starting points
Final Considerations
Impact
It was a pleasure for me to interview other art enthusiasts and discover different perspectives. One of the people invited to participate in the Usability Studies told me that she had never thought about how a booking app could be useful for a frequent gallery goer like her.
What I learned
By focusing a lot on the research part, I learned how galleries and museums often take for granted the importance that users attach to the possibility of booking online through an app or website.
More Projects
