Art Fund
Mobile app design
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.
UX Design
Case study
Figma
2024
User participants
I checked in regularly with 15 users who participated in my research and testing.
Problem
Art Fund users are without a mobile app platform, making it more difficult to find events, to donate and to use their membership perks on the go.
Solution
Providing event information and avenues for users to make donation. It also provides a reviewing system to better inform ticket purchase choices.
Cultural growth between 2022-24
Statistics behind the UK art landscape.
This case study began with exploring the arts within the UK. How Art Fund operates and the impact that they make, as well as the growth the UK has made in its cultural sector.
£8m
is Art Fund's annual profit
11%
increase in digital engagement
33%
of the UK population visit museums.
1m
is the annual museum footfall
89%
of adults are engaging in the arts
£1.5b
annual impact in the UK cultural sector.
Interviewing my users
Gathering thoughts on the art scene.
Gathering anecdotal feedback from my users was important, in order to take their personal experiences with art platforms into account.
More and more people are making the most of the arts within the UK now that institutions have healed after the pandemic - a lot of which have received helped from Art Fund.
Survey Monkey was used to send out my questions, the participants were from creative industries, and associated with art and design. Their identities have been altered to preserve their anonymity.
12%
of participants use
Artsy • Saatchi Art
25%
of participants use
Art Newspaper • ArtRabbit
37%
of participants use
EventBrite • Instagram
40%
purchase a ticket for a cultural event every month
70%
are neutral in their satisfaction of their current art platforms
80%
of participants would value trying a new app
Competitive audit
The user's desired features amongst competitors.
The surveyed users required four features that they felt were important in an app for discovering cultural events.
What the users want
Recommendations
of events throughout the UK
Social elements
to communicate with other users
Discounts
on exhibition tickets
Reviews
provided by users and critics
What competitors offer
Understanding needs
Empathising with the user experiences.
Synthesising the thoughts of my users helped gain a more concise picture of what the issues they confronted were.
Pain points
Needs
How they feel
Uninformed
Frustrated
Hopeful
What they think
They are informed of events through chance
Entry to exhibitions can be quite expensive
What they do
Purchases tickets via peer review
Finds events whilst on the go
Uses their membership through website
What they say
The Art Fund service is great in theory
Need to know about venue amenities
Recommend events outside of big cities
1/4
Obstacle
Problem
Platforms inefficiently
suggesting events
Users find events based
on chance
Using multiple sources
for objective
The process takes
too long
Hypothesis
Suggestions based on chosen preferences
An efficient reviewing system with a social element
Indications of what a National Art Pass is valid for
Building from the ground up
Ideating using my user insights.
Information architecture helped organise the different features that would be used in the product and begin formulating an ideal blueprint.
Explore
Recommended events
Sort/filter
Search
Saved items
Cart
Review feed
Profile
Name
Location
Followed users
Following
Reviews uploaded
Donation options
Contact us
Donate
About Art Fund
What we do
Make a donation
Our advocacy
How we work
Our people
Art Pass
The card
Pass options to buy
Expiry date
Renewal
Offers
User flows
User flows were formed to create paths for the blueprint, in which the user would complete their objective.
This example is one of the typical event discovery process.
From sketches to wireframes
I began my physical visualisation with rapid sketching, using Crazy 8's to generate ideas - these ideas help build structures for the IA blueprints. This were then iterated upon heavily in Figma, with user feedback.
User testing
I proposed a task to a few participants. Using my wireframes - Find a review for an event. Once completed they reverted with feedback on what they felt could be improved.
Matt
An art enthusiast
Use bigger text to draw attention to the reviews button.
Nicola
Museum staff
I think a more efficient way to find reviews for a specific event, is when the user searches for it, it comes up with the event but also gives them the option to look at the reviews already out there.
Julia
A new UK citizen
The buttons could be a little more noticeable […] even though it was one of the first things on the exhibition's screen, it wasn't immediately obvious where it was.
User feedback implemented
Large, friendly text with prominent buttons
Reviews added to the Explore page
The visual identity
Implementing an effective design system.
Art Fund has a varying colour palette within their website, which needed to be reduced in order to create a more cohesive user experience, whilst meeting WCAG standards for accessibility.
Colour palette
Contemporary and understated
Inclusive, friendly and culturally-engaged.
Content remains the focal point
Identifies items using original Art Fund colours
Interface is cleaner and more accessible
Typography
Lexend Deca 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.
SF Pro Text is used for the body text, for no other reason than its straight-forward readability.
H2 - subheadings
Support the people who make our museums
Components and iconography
Icons and the general set-up of what was required for the user experience, was taken from the Art Fund website. However, certain things were changed.
Now a reviewing system has been implemented, I altered the 'save for later' icon to a heart rather than a star, so the star can be used for user reviews.
The result!
A helpful platform and happy users.
The feedback from my participants was overwhelming and conveyed how successful an app for Art Fund would be.
80%
would use the app ahead
of the website
80%
would recommend this app to a friend
60%
of users were able to find a review quickly
"I found it easy to know where to go"
"It's something missing, Art Fund would benefit from this!"