Artzen
A startup initiative to reimagine a central hub for artists and enthusiasts.
Client
Artzen
Industry
Art, Social Media
Duration
March - April 2021
Info
Artzen is an international social media / shopping app for artists and art enthusiasts that primarily allows for the sharing and purchasing of artwork. With current art shopping applications only offering shopping services to users, I decided to add a social media aspect with no limitations into Artzen so artists and casual users alike can post, share, purchase, or sell artwork and truly feel that this is ‘their space’ for ‘their art’. A user goal-directed design method was utilized for this project, which focuses around my persona creation and goals.
Starting Off
This project utilizes a user goal-directed design method that gave very effective results for the overall design of Artzen. I discovered that using qualitative research methods proved to be the most useful, such as competitive analysis, literature reviews, stakeholder interviews, SME interviews, user interviews and hypothesis construction based on personas which was very important in this project. To begin, I started out by asking myself a few initial key questions and performing four SME interviews with participants who have had experiences with purchasing and selling artwork through online services.
Analyzing the Competition
With Instagram’s most recent update, they implemented a shopping feature replacing the ‘activity’ screen resulting in Instagram becoming a direct competitor. However, the addition of the shopping screen resulted in features that made Instagram being pushed to different areas of screens making them hard to find.
While Artsy, Redbubble and Saatchi Art aren’t direct competitors to Artzen, they do favor the shopping aspect and do it really well. Being able to sell and shop for artworks is very simple and easy throughout these apps but they all lack the ability to use actual social features such as sharing, messaging and posting.
Laying the Groundwork
Beginning the actual design process of Artzen, I wanted to create a simple task flow first to showcase the basic process a user might take when navigating through the app. This visualizes the many ways a user can go about using the app and when they meet or accomplish user goals. It is also noted which processes are part of the pre-purchase navigation and when the actual purchase experience begins for the user.
Taking into account my task flow I created earlier, I sketched out a few basic possible frames that could correlate with the processes shown in the flow. Through these paper frames I’ll be able to create the preliminary flow of the product and review the overall layout that the user will go through. I can review these frames and check what needs to be improved and what can be used as an improvement on another screen.
After getting a bit of an idea on what the basic layout and format of the app will look and act like, I began creating the low-fidelity wireframes and screens of Artzen. These lo-fi frames were then combined together for my low-fidelity prototype and prepared for usability testing. A lot of time was spent on preparing this lo-fi prototype since I wanted to make sure that the UX of the prototype was in a presentable state before allowing a few users to try it out.
Implementing Feedback
Once the prototype was in the hands of participants, I conducted a few usability tests to check out how the basic operations and layout of the application felt to users. I asked these participants to attempt to accomplish different scenarios, such as browsing through the trending and home screens, going through the purchasing process, and discovering an artists profile. With the feedback received from these tests, I went forward with the design and began crafting the final designs of Artzen.
Final Design
No Limitations
When designing Artzen, one of the very first obstacles was creating a splash screen that would draw users into the application without providing any conflict. Included with the login and register buttons is a ‘continue as guest’ option. If a user would like to browse without creating an account, they are allowed to do so and can create an account within the app later on.
Socialize
Artzen’s social aspect was very clearly inspired by Instagram’s social experience. I wanted Artzen’s social features to be easily accessible when it came to following artists or posting / sharing artwork so users can quickly get to what they want to do. This encourages users to share their artwork more and connect with whoever they like.
Discover, Whatever
Many options are available to users when it comes to finding and exploring different artists and artwork. The explore screen provides the ability to find whatever artwork, art style, or artist the user is looking for, while the trending screen offers different methods to discover something new.
Keeping It Familiar
While Artzen is primarily for artists and art enthusiasts, casual users that have no knowledge on art related fields need to be able to use the application too. Therefore, everything on the app was designed to be very simple and easy for everyone to use. With easy to read typography, recognizable iconography and a simple social and purchasing experience, Artzen caters towards all audiences.
Focus Up
The user interface of Artzen keeps a simple dark gray and white color scheme with a bit of red here and there. Using colors very minimally throughout the interface of the application allows for the artists and artwork to shine through and catch the users attention.
A Quick Experience
I wanted to keep the purchase experience as simple and accessible as possible. The payment method and shipping specifics are both offered for the user within a single screen to streamline the process and keep it easy. This allows for just few taps and a quicker checkout.
Styles Guide
A very clean and simple color palette is utilized when it comes to Artzen’s branding. Due to the logo of Artzen being a Tori gate, it is only natural to adapt the colors found on the Japanese flag and use them in a way where they wouldn’t conflict with one another. A light shade of red along with a dark gray and white are used for Artzen’s logo and interface. The main typeface for the application is MADE TOMMY due to the simplicity and easy to read typography as well as its very adaptable uppercase and lowercase stylings.
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