PALETTE
Timeline: 13 Weeks
Role: UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher, Product Designer
Tools: Figma, Adobe, Dall-E
Platform: iOS
Palette is a dual-interface collaborative platform utilized by galleries and their artists to streamline operations, reduce redundancy, and minimize errors that can impede productivity. It consolidates communication methods through direct messaging and task reminder notifications, serves as a repository for images and pertinent data that can be accessed by all gallery staff, and utilizes both internal and joint calendars.
PROBLEM SPACE
The art industry is often opaque, with many people and moving parts essential for its operation. Despite this complexity, there is no internal platform for communication, content sharing, and planning between gallery staff and artists. Without a holistic platform to facilitate these processes, gallerists often face the frustrations of communication breakdowns and redundancies, wasting time for both the gallery and the artists.
How might we minimize the manual effort involved in communication and file sharing to reduce redundancy and errors while promoting growth and success?
PROCESS OVERVIEW
INITIAL RESEARCH
EARLY DISCOVERIES
Gallerists manage A LOT: exhibition schedules, art fairs, sales, inventory tracking, client & artist relationships, and press, to name a few.
Current communication methods include phone, text, WhatsApp, email, in-person, dropbox, and even USB drives.
Overwhelming communication channels lead to lost information, artwork, and staff burnout.
ULTIMATE IMPACT
Palette will facilitate ease of communication and information sharing between art professionals. By consolidating the process, staff and artists can focus on what matters most: creating, advocating, and selling. Ultimately, a smooth operation will facilitate greater success for the galleries and the artists they represent.
Why hasn’t the art industry built a platform to streamline this system?
CONSTRAINTS, ASSUMPTIONS, & PROTO-PERSONA
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Industry
- Specialized industry with little public knowledge of operations
- Research subjects might be hard to access
- Interview subjects may require discretion
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Technology
- Gallery and artist onboarding may have a learning curve
- User will need to see it as a value-add
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Culture
- Art industry is slow to adapt to change
- Older users may struggle to convert to new methods
HYPOTHESIS: An app designed for gallerists and artists to address redundancy and communication flow will reduce errors, increase productivity, and reduce staff burnout.
Interview Objectives
Our aim is to understand the pain points that both gallerists and artists encounter most frequently and cause disruption in productivity.
Interviewees
We interviewed gallerists and artists. The first group were gallery directors and staff. The second group were artists who are either currently or were previously represented by at least one gallery.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Information Flow
Gallerists and artists are frustrated with the chaotic flow of information
Time Usage
Complaints about time wasted consolidating and locating images, files and information
Relationships
Industry relationships are important, and easy communication is a must
IDEATION & ITERATION
VERSION 1 PRIMARY TASK FLOWS
After reviewing our interview notes, I built 8 task flows: 4 flows for gallerists and 4 flows for artists. All tasks focused on addressing the most relevant topics mentioned in interviews: file generation, file sharing, and communication. Below are 2 examples.
LOW-FIDELITY: GALLERIST INTERFACE
LOW-FIDELITY: ARTIST INTERFACE
USER TESTING AND ITERATIONS
USER TESTING ROUND 1
Purpose: To evaluate the app's effectiveness and user experience in facilitating communication and file sharing between galleries and artists before an exhibition.
Demographic: This platform is tailored for the art industry, so we tested with art gallery professionals and working artists. Using my contacts, I gathered insights from four gallerists and four artists with 8 to 29 years of experience.
Gallerist Tasks
Verify painting has all necessary information
Message artist to complete information on painting
Add new artwork
Message gallery director
Artist Tasks
Complete painting information
Message your gallery manager
Add new artwork
Add new file
ROUND ONE INSIGHTS
Users struggled with the horizontal scroll on notification previews
Users want to view all artworks on one page
Design
Functions
Users want ability to add off-roster artists
Users want a calendar
Adding artworks to exhibition one by one is tedious
Artwork “notes” section is not accessible app-wide
Flow
App Synch
Certain editing capabilities from artist interface could cause complications when synching with gallerist interface
SELECT ITERATIONS
USER TESTING ROUND 2
Purpose: To understand usability and focus on user needs to enhance product value. I added a calendar task to assess new pages and flows and held in-depth conversations with each user to explore their needs further.
Demographic: I tested four additional gallery professionals (three current, one former) and three more artists with gallery representation.
**Relevant Notes:** This phase of the research allowed me to deeply refine Palette's flow and applications. After this round of testing, I made the most significant alterations to the gallerist interface, inspired by user feedback and personal observations. Aside from UI adjustments, the artist interface remained largely the same.
Gallerist Tasks
Verify painting has all necessary information
Message artist to complete information on painting
Add new artwork
Message gallery director
Add a calendar event
Artist Tasks
Complete painting information
Message your gallery manager
Add new artwork
Add new file
Add a calendar event
ROUND 2 INSIGHTS
Users prefer industry standard of artwork titles in italics over quotes
Design
Functions
Users need a contact list
Users want the ability to email images and files directly from the app
Users want a “viewing mode” to present artwork to clients without revealing sensitive information
Client View
Permissions
Gallerists are concerned that too many staff members have permissions to make changes to data
SELECT ITERATIONS & MID-FIDELITY FRAMES
BRANDING & VISUAL IDENTITY
VISUAL IDENTITY
Once I completed the final mid-fidelity wireframe, I focused on developing Palette's branding and visual identity. I started by listing keywords that I felt best represented the platform: minimalism, creativity, and collaborative. With these in mind, I assembled a mood board and selected a monotone purple color palette to evoke creativity and ensure the artwork stood out.
APP LOGO AND ICON
I wanted to use a minimalist painter’s palette image to play on the app’s name and make it recognizable. The initial logo I designed didn't match the app's minimalist identity and only worked well in a square format. It clashed with the homepage, so I redesigned it to be more minimalistic. The updated icon is now easier to identify on a phone home screen and complements the homepage better.
TYPOGRAPHY & COLORS
In my initial design, I used League Spartan and Lato fonts. While the modern style was fitting, League Spartan lacked an italic option. After testing, I switched to Urbanist, another modern font that offers italics and better legibility.
IMAGE GENERATION
I knew the app concept would need many artwork images to create an attractive high-fidelity prototype. To achieve this and avoid copyright issues, I used AI to generate artwork images and created installation images in Photoshop.
HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
VIDEO PREVIEW: GALLERIST INTERFACE
SELECT HIGH FIDELITY FRAMES: GALLERIST INTERFACE
SELECT HIGH FIDELITY FRAMES: ARTIST INTERFACE
NEXT STEPS
INTER-APP INTEGRATION
Palette primarily serves as a back-end application. Since most gallerists have public profiles on e-commerce sites like Artsy or Artnet, I aim to build a feature that allows Palette to export artwork information directly to these platforms.
ALTERNATIVE PLATFORM
Although this app is focused on mobile, iPads are widely used in the industry for art fairs and client-facing situations. I am currently developing an iPad-compatible version of Palette.
ANDROID VERSION
Most industry professionals use iOS, but Android users should not be overlooked.