Letting you in
Art Fund
Concept project
ROLE
Branding
UI Design
User Research
Product design
TOOLS
Figma
Premiere
TIMELINE
Nov 2024
Feb 2025
DESCRIPTION
A mobile app design for event discovery, offering user reviews and membership perks to Art Fund users.
CHALLENGE
Art Fund is a UK-based non-profit organisation dedicated to increasing access to the arts. It provides information on events and supports fundraising for the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage.
Art Fund users are without a mobile app platform. They cannot access the service on the go, making it more difficult to find events, or have knowledge of whether their membership grants a discounted entry.
OBJECTIVE
Design an app for Art Fund, in line with their branding.
Champion the needs of the user to meet their satisfaction.
HISTORY
I began this case-study by delving into the history of Art Fund - gaining an understanding of the organisation, how they operate and the impact that they make on society as well as the arts.
As a registered charity, they display all of their financial reports online in the form of annual reviews, along with highlights of what projects they have brought to light.
135,000
Total members.
£ 8+ million
Estimated annual
revenue.
900
£ 7+ million
Grants to organisations
in responding to the
COVID-19 crisis.
Since the recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic, the UK has seen an enormous growth in engagement with the cultural sector. Government statistics (ending March 2023) show the following figures.
More and more people are taking advantage of the arts within the UK now that institutions have healed after the pandemic - a lot of which have received helped from Art Fund.
More recent statistics (courtesy of the UK Arts Council) also show an increase in engagement for those seeking a 'heads-up' on cultural events, from 2022 - 2024.
Engagement in
the Arts
Digital
28%
46%
Physical
89%
90%
Total
90%
91%
Engagement in
Heritage
Digital
18%
25%
Physical
67%
66%
Total
69%
69%
Engagement in
Museums
Digital
9%
13%
Physical
33%
43%
Total
36%
46%
USER SURVEY
With these statistics in mind, I surveyed 50 individuals, seeking to gain insights into their experiences and perceptions. The aim was gather data on whether they were satisfied with the current platforms available and to uncover areas for improvement.
I sourced participants from creative industries, and online forums associated with art and design, as well as people who enjoy the arts 'casually'. I used a Survey Monkey form for them to answer the questions I had.
70%
are neutral in their satisfaction with the current art platforms available to them.
80%
of participants would value trying a new app that brings them the latest events and reviews.
40%
purchase a ticket for a cultural event every month.
USER INTERVIEWS
I interviewed the participants to gather anecdotal feedback as well, it was important to take their personal experiences with art platforms into account - building a case study on statistics and data alone is not enough to build empathy for the user.
With their routine experiences and opinions in mind, a knowledge of what platforms they currently use was crucial. This would allow me to perform a relevant competitive audit based on their precise user history. The following is a breakdown of what they currently use.
12.5%
Artsy
Saatchi Art
25%
ArtSpace
ArtRabbit
Art Newspaper
Google Arts & Culture
37%
EventBrite
COMPETETIVE AUDIT
With their platform history, I carried out a competitive audit to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each, with the intention of finding areas in which Art Fund could thrive.
Current feature
Missing feature
Semi-present
The key areas that the current art platform market is negating are: User Reviews, Discounts and Ticket Purchase. These are all areas that can be resolved and provide a greater experience for the user when they are searching for cultural events.
🙌 Recommendations
👨🎨 Artist profiles
💬 Social elements
💸 Discounts
🎟️ Ticket purchase
⭐️ Reviews
EMPATHISING WITH THE USER
The users exhibited a deep fascination with the arts. Despite the fact that London is the art fulcrum, they are keen on exploring what's happening in the UK outside this artistic hub. As a rule, they opt for events that are shaped by the perspectives of others and incidental advertisements they come across.
My next step was simplifying all of the information I had gathered, into concise statements of what their actions and feelings, and from that develop my problem and hypothesis statement to build from.
Says
The Art Fund service is great in theory.
Need to know about venue amenities.
Recommend events outside of big cities.
Feels
Uninformed.
Frustrated.
Hopeful.
Thinks
They are informed of events through chance.
Entry to exhibitions can be quite expensive.
Does
Uses their membership through website.
Purchases tickets via peer review.
Finds events whilst on the go.
USER PERSONA
Distilling the thoughts and ideas into personas helped me better understand the user needs, by hypothesising their lives in a consolidated manner.
A pain point I picked up on outside of my user research - given that Art Fund is a charity that welcomes support, not having a mobile app limits the immediacy of their users being able to make donations.
Pain points
Knowing which events the Art Pass Membership is eligible for.
Having a physical card, when the user uses their phone more than a wallet of cards.
Not knowing enough about amenities at venues in the UK.
Needs
To find cultural events throughout the UK that align with their creative interests.
A rating system for users.
Clear event recommendations, and filtering.
To be able to save events for later.
Platforms inefficiently
suggesting events.
Using multiple sources
for objective.
Users find events
based on chance
The process takes
too long
Hypothesis
A personalised experience, with suggestions based on the user's chosen preferences.
Indications of what events the user's National Art Pass is valid for.
A system in which users can upload reviews and follow others to read theirs.
IDEATION AND PROTOTYPING
With all of the relevant research in place, coupled with an understanding of the user, I could begin synthesising their insights and build a design system.
The construction of information architecture was needed to organise and present the different features that would be used in the product and begin formulating an idea of hierarchy in features. The idea was to categorise.
National Art Pass
Art Pass card
Art Pass purchase
Art Pass details
Expiry date
Art Pass renewal
Locations for Art Pass
Offers
Explore
Search
Categories
Sort by / filter
For you
Recommended events
Discount indications
Sort by / Filter
Save events
Reviews
Ratings
Link to user profiles
Filter by event
Photographs
Event Listing
Event photo
Link to insitution
Rating
Link to reviews
Description
Address / Contact
Map
Ameneties
Similar events
The user journey, a path followed to achieve their end goal - visiting an event. Taking into account the need for user reviews. It is a simplified view of the process to build from.
A series of Crazy 8 drawings to generate quick ideas on the layout and elements of the Art Fund app, these were then translated into lo-fi wireframes on paper, and then more detailed digital wireframes. The diagram below displays the three iterations for the For You page. I used this wireframing process for each one of the app screens.
UNMODERATED USABILITY TEST
After converting my lo-fi wireframes into basic prototypes, I established a path for the user to follow in order to select and purchase a National Art Pass.
The instruction the 5 chosen participants was:
"From the default screen, please navigate to the National Art Pass page, add the Student National Art Pass to your basket, and then navigate to checkout"
There was clarification that this was for a very early prototype and that the findings from this test would help in further development of the design. The participants then provided feedback on the usability.
ATOMIC DESIGN
A design system in keeping with Art Fund's brand identity, was what I set out to create. I took into account font, iconography and colour palette - all with the intention of reflecting the current Art Fund branding as an approachable, soft aesthetic. Once it was set, it could be moulded for each section of the app, but still feel the same regardless of the change in colour or text.
Art Fund use a variety of colour combinations. I checked and altered them to meet the specific WCAG. All heading combinations meet AAA needs. It was a challenge in making such a colour palette seamless on a small scale, so opted to limit each screen to a maximum of 3-4 main colours: background, body text, and the 'branding' for navigation and menus.
Donate
#164C8E
#5AEBC7
For you
#1025A7
#FCB5F5
Your account
#C3FFCD
#265451
Explore
#2BF9C8
#AC1593
Reviews
#7CCAE9
#18279C
Saved
#F99AF2
#1026A7
Our purpose
#0169CC
#FFF556
National Art Pass
#B813AA
#FFFFFF
Basket
#95E894
#1D1D1F
TYPOGRAPHY
The chosen typography uses a replacement for the company font, in the main headings and CTA's, with a simple font for longer sections of text.
Frustratingly, Art Fund has their own company font, which is unavailable to designers outside of the organisation. However, I found one that resembles it very closely, which I believe is one of the fonts used in combination with others, to make their logo. Lexend Deca. This is a font that combines soft curves in lettering, with a sharp point, it is similar to many others found it art establishments like galleries and museums with a post-modern aesthetic, angular and eye-catching.
SF Pro Text is used for the body text, for no other reason than it is very straight-forward and easily read. It is also easily set apart from the heading texts. Simple.
H1
Headings
Lexend Deca
24px
Regular
H2
Buttons
Lexend Deca
18px
Medium
H3
Body
SF Pro Text
16px
Regular
ICONOGRAPHY
The design of the iconography and buttons were constructed so they can all be repurposed for each section of the app, using Art Fund's varying colour palette. This would allow for the creative branding to be kept throughout the experience and represent the variety on offer to the user.
This rough prototype for a menu animation is an example of this in effect.
USER FEEDBACK
I asked my participants in this case study, if they found the app design a simpler system of finding events, when compared to going through a browser to the Art Fund webpage. The response was extremely positive…
They found it a more convenient method of event discovery! And very in keeping with the company branding.
The usability testing (previously mentioned) also showed a speedy method of choosing an Art Pass from the selection on offer.
96%
would use the app ahead of using the website
15.2 seconds
average time taken to choose an Art Pass.
WHAT I LEARNED
The main lesson from I took from this case-study, was the importance of iteration. There were many times where I found myself feeling satisfied with my designs, and would take a step back. However it was only upon revisiting my research, that was able to see further improvements that could be applied to the designs.
Investigation serves as a crucial foundation in creation. You're designing for clients, not personal use. Every bit of knowledge collected, will dictate the final design's appearance, sensation and functionality.
POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS
The foundations of the app's design have been successfully laid, and there is a clear user flow to be followed, but the app could use extra features. Potentially an increased social element - a messaging structure, or the ability to like posts and leave comments. The only hesitancy in adding these is that the app becomes to ingrained with social media qualities and overloads the user with too much information.