Marketspace
Art
AR
role
Conducting interviews & usability testing, creating wireframes for auction screens, designing the final prototype, and crafting the artwork detail and auction screens.
team
Emma Sun, Kellie Haung, Ryan Wong, Robin Wang
Timeline
3 months
problem space
Financial burdens that limit opportunities for growth.
Lack of visibility in a highly saturated market. Existing platforms fail to effectively address these challenges or foster community engagement.
problem statement
How can we help emerging artists gain exposure, build an audience, and generate sales so they can turn their passion into a source of income and achieve recognition for their work?
research
Artists want deeper connections with their audience and art community.
7/10 participants
Artists perceived a devaluation of their art due to: the saturated market, the audience's lack of understanding for what goes behind a finished art piece.
7/10 participants
Artists feel frustrated and hopeless in their efforts to gain exposure online.
8/10 participants
- Fixed prices do not offer the flexibility for emerging artists to maximize the value of their artwork.
- Algorithm bias affects the feed, limiting exposure for less-established artists.
- Lack of physical interaction and opportunities for community building.
- High entry barriers, with the art trade often managed by third-party agencies instead of the artists themselves.
View the full research report here.
focused direction
Cameron
Goals
Sell her work for a fair price, to a buyer who would genuinely appreciate her work
Build a deeper connection with her audience
Pain points
Hard to get exposure online
Doesn’t know how to price her work
John
Goals
Wants a painting that compliments his home
Pain points
When viewing artwork online, he can’t visualize how it would in real life
Gallery pieces are too expensive and feel distant to him
As-is user journey map
Cameron
Traditional artist
John
Buyer
ideation
Drawing from user research insights, we structured our prioritization around two major goals:
Increase artists' income.
Strengthening artists' connections with buyers, fellow artists, and the broader art community.
our proposed solution
Artistry, a location-based digital art marketplace that maximizes the value of artists' work and strengthens connections between emerging artists and buyers within local communities.
Based on the prioritization matrix, we selected 2 most relevant features for our minimum viable product (MVP):
Identified problem
Interviews
Competitor analysis
Secondary research
Problem statement
Personas
User journey map
How might we
Prioritization matrix
User flow
Wireframing
Lo-Fi prototype
User testing
Wireframe iteration
Style tile
Design system
Hi-Fi Prototype
Group presentation
Pros of 1 Column:
Larger images allow for better detail visibility.
Simplifies navigation and creates a focused viewing experience.
Works well for various image aspect ratios.
Reduces cognitive load for users.
Pros of 2 Columns:
Displays more artwork at once and reduces scrolling, giving artists more exposure.
Creates a more dynamic, gallery-like feel.
Efficient use of screen space for mobile devices.
We also want to measure how price breakdowns can impact user behavior.
Our usability testing showed that "hours spent" was deemed untrustworthy by users because artists can technically input any number of hours they want. We proposed another version of the price breakdown, which will undergo further usability testing to validate our assumption.
Current design
Proposed design
Challenges Overcome and Achievements
• Managed differing opinions and worked well as a team.
• Embraced tight deadline and learned to use new tool, Bezi to prototype AR effect effectively.
Limitations and Future Improvements
• Relied on limited user data, which may not cover all user needs.
• Need more usability testing to validate key features.
• Plan to expand research, test more often, and explore new technologies.
thank you ♡