RAKANTER COLLECTIVE
CONNECTING PEOPLE AND ART WITH TECHNOLOGY
TEAM JEREMY DANZIE / JONATHAN SUERO​​
ROLE LEAD UX/UI DESIGNER
TYPE MOBILE APPLICATION
OVERVIEW
PROBLEM / CONCEPT / SOLUTION
OVERVIEW
PROBLEM / CONCEPT / SOLUTION
Being an artist is one of the most rewarding things a person can do with there life. As an artist, I have found that many of us are trying to discover ways in which they can find resources, whether it may be galleries or alternative spaces to exhibit there work. To be honest as an artist myself I can really sympathize with the situation.
One day when I was on business in D.C.
I was having lunch at a ramen restaurant and I asked one of the employees if there where any galleries in the area, to my surprise he said no. That's when I decided to ask people as I navigated throughout the city if they were aware of any art galleries in the area. To my amazement, no one knew of any art galleries in the area. This is when I came up with the idea to create a mobile app that would act as a guide in aiding individuals when looking for galleries as they traveled.
The app would also aid as a cultural education mechanism when it comes to the discovering of new artist of all mediums.
design process
WE CHOOSE A COMMONLY USED UX SYSTEM SO AS TO ITERATE QUICKLY.
When working on any project time management is critical and this project wasn't any different. The project was championed by a two-man team, comprised of Jeremy Danzie UX/UI Lead, and Jonathan Suero UX Researcher. When exploring various options for user center research methods we decided to choose a commonly used process so as to be as efficient as possible. Iteration is always critical, and when you are a lean team wearing many hats failing fast is very important. Why? Because being able to separate what works and what does not work quickly and efficiently is very important when working at a pace that allows ideas to flow in a natural way when focusing on solving problems.
UNDERSTANDING
OBJECTIVES / REQUIREMENTS / CONSTRAINTS
When discussing objectives understanding the user's needs is always the most important. But how do you understand the users needs when the initial issue was a problem that you discovered in the beginning. You have to use yourself as the initial user. The first pass of ideation was based on the problems that I personally experienced. Our objective in this process was to use the initial set of concerns as a baseline in creating a set of requirements and constraints that would be compared with the future user testing.
This method is not a typical method in beginning a UX research strategy, but when starting a project working with the best options you have is vital when you are trying to get the project moving. Our requirements at first were minimal but as we progressed with the project we started to recognize that we needed to reevaluate the application's constraints as well as the users' requirements. This came about as we started to understand what the users needs were outside of our initial evaluation.
PERSONAS / ETHNOGRAPHY / OBSERVATIONS / STORIES
USER RESEARCH
We recognize quickly that progressing the project forward to persona research was the next critical step in understanding our user.
FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS - Create a mobile application that has a positive cross-cultural user experience.
BUSINESS OBJECTIVE - The product should be monetizable, but free to the public without any ads.
TECH REQUIREMENTS - Its main tech objective is to provide accurate and reliable GPS locating ability for the finding of art galleries and museums around the globe.
( Brief Overview )
There is an old saying that you don't get a second impression, so we chose to start our user research with a survey of our load screen aesthetics. In
UX attention to aesthetical taste is generally not the most important thing to look at when starting a project, and in some circles, it's even frowned upon, but, the load screen isn't something you technically use or is it. The load screen is not used with the hand but used by the eyes so in that context the user's experience would be a visual experience only. We feel that starting out with a beautiful load screen is important. Now, we know, we know, it's not all about form over function, so the next set of user testings were done with observing the users in informal and formal settings. We choose to use screen recording software so as to compare recordings and get an understanding of how each user managed each task.
( Load Screen Options )
( Recorded User Testing on mobile prototype )
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
PERSONA RESEARCH
As we progressed to persona research we concluded that we would use individuals that were following our Rakanter Collective Instagram feed. Rakanter Collective is our fine art and contemporary art project. By using our Instagram as a research pool it gave us a instant way in finding people that would be good prospects for our app. Why use Instagram? When you take into consideration that they already are aware of who we are, and are interested in what we are doing, it make sense. Also we can see exactly what they like and do with there time. When doing persona research we established seven different categories of individuals that would use our app.
ARTIST
ART INSTITUTIONS
LIFESTYLE
TRAVEL
COMMERCIAL
PUBLICATIONS
COLLECTORS