Introduction:
Teamed up with Jon Crabb and Mark J Winter, we were given a project brief which had a main focus of redesigning their current homepage for non-profit institutions (i.e: Museums).
Resulting in an improved User Experience with an increased conversion rate, We soon discovered that in order to do the above we needed to also redesign a series of other screens to keep the experience consistent.
NOTE: Some images had to be blurred out due to copyright reasons.
Discover: Current Homepage
Vastari is an online tool that connects museums, producers, collectors and suppliers in order to organise more efficient exhibitions.
The company was founded in 2012, when two art historians discovered that museums and private collectors were worlds apart, and mainly communicating via archaic systems of old men with little black books.
We began our 2 week sprint by testing some tasks with a vast number of users. Then my teammates and I met up to compare notes and find the problem we will be solving in this sprint.
The one common key feedback we received from every user we tested with was that they were wondering why there wasn’t a search bar anywhere on the site.
The tasks seemed clear at first until users were left confused by how to complete them due to the many options available for one single task.
The key takeaways from the user tests we conducted were that:
- Users found that the sketches on the homepage made it look unsophisticated.
- The “Request” button’s function was not understood by users.
- The overall user experience of the site was not very good because users didn’t know how to complete the tasks.
The feedback we received from the user tests, was nothing short from insightful for our design.
But we had to do some further research to discover the pain points of planning an exhibition.
As well as testing the current site with random users, we also conducted interviews to find trends and determine how a tool like Vastari might help curators, as our end goal is to make them the centre of our design.
We also found out that big museums have departments that deal with the borrowing and lending of artefacts.
Which means Vastari would be a great tool for small and medium institutions that don’t have such departments.
The key takeaways from the user interview we conducted were that:
- Communication with collectors is very crucial when borrowing objects.
- Curators found the admin work of planning an exhibition frustrating.
- Authenticity and trust are a very important factor in the art world.
The insights received from the user interviews informed our design as we envisioned to focus on simplicity and trust.
Before moving on to the next phase of our sprint we wrote down all the insights on post-its notes and made an affinity map of our findings to inform our design.
The results we got from the above were as follows:
Define: Who is our persona and what does she want?
With a clear view of the major pain points of the homepage, we moved on to defining a persona we will be designing for.
The user research also helped us discover the problem statement below:
Users were instantly confused by the homepage and did not know where to click to order an object as they had too many options.
Connie, an intelligent and very busy curator at a mid-sized museum, was very impatient hence why we had to build a site that is very simple to understand.
The current site would not provide her with a good user experience, the lack of a search bar would leave her confused and all the options available to click would leave her overwhelmed.
Having a persona like Connie and designing for her will allow us to target a large number of users as simplicity is a key heuristic for good UX.
At this point, we put on a pot of coffee and started to develop some ideas.
Develop: Exploring practical ideas and Iterations
After defining our persona, we met up with the clients and their colleagues for a Design Studio session.
With the user as the main focus of our design, we agreed on a final sketch for the home screen.
The following day we brainstormed designs for the following screens in the flow which we then took out for some needed user testing.
The initial tests proved that our paper prototype was missing some information and was not very clear, we incorporated the feedback in the following iteration which was digitised.
Iterations:
Homepage test feedback:
- Search button was missing.
- The brief mentioned that collectors are more likely to reply to a non-profit institution with a more complete profile.
What we did:
- Added a pop-up progress bar to encourage users to complete their profile.
- Added a search button.
Results page test feedback:
- Users were instantly confused by the hidden filter on the paper prototype.
- Search bar should now be populated.
What we did:
- Made a visible filter.
- Populated the search bar.
Filter test feedback:
- Not hierarchical.
- Users would expect things like “Current Location” to be on top.
- Too many filter options and some seemed vaguely similar.
What we did:
- Card sorts to prioritise the different options and simplify it.
- Made a brand new filter (right) with just six very clear sections which we incorporated in our high fidelity iteration and tested further.
Object page test feedback:
- The “Contact Owner” button should be bigger and more prominent as it is the main action on this page.
- The paintings’ specs should also be more visible on the page.
What we did:
- Made a bigger “Contact Owner” button.
- Moved the paintings’ specs to the middle of the page and made the box bigger.
After the above iterations, we went back to make more coffee and increase the fidelity as time was not on our side.
Results:
We achieved a much simpler and intuitive site that received some great feedback from users:
Therefore improving the task completion rate:
We presented our findings to the clients and our class and we were glad to say that the clients were very pleased with our final solution and discussed that they will implement the changes we made to their site in the near future.
The future updates for Vastari will include the below:
Thank you for reading and please click on the link below if you would like to visit my website for more projects I worked on https://www.emanuelacosentino.com/
Companies
Vastari Group Ltd
- Arts and Culture