Artsy Mobile App
A personalized app experience for art lovers to find, engage, and invest in art.
Who is Artsy?
Artsy is an online art platform that catalogues, shares, and sells the world’s art.
The Challenge
Artsy believes millennials are more than any other age group to view art as a financial asset. Our task was to design an app experience that inspires a younger customer-base to invest in art.
Target users: Young professionals based in the United States. Specifically, millennials (25 - 39 year olds).
Timeline: 2 week design sprint
Team: Julia Delmedico, Rose Pearson, Chris Michaelson
Role: UX Designer, UI Lead
Tools: Sketch, Abstract, Miro, Trello, Figma
Preliminary Research
The first step was to send out a survey to find out how our target users engage with art and what they believe about art investing right now.
92%
92% of users have a positive opinion of fine art and engage with it often.
50%
50% of users use a mobile app to manage their financial investments.
36%
36% of users considered art to be a smart financial investment.
100%
100% of users felt they did not know enough about art and believed they did not have enough money to invest in it.
Survey Insights
After screening for our target user, a young, professional, millennial – we realized that there is a knowledge gap between users and art, the art world, and especially the potential for art to be a smart financial investment
Finding our persona
After our survey, we got to talking to art enthusiasts in our target bracket, and they shared their current art engagement behaviors, as well as their pain points when it come to learning about and buying art. Using affinity mapping, we boiled them down to three main pain points:
“I don’t know enough”
There is so much art in the world, currently, historically, and geographically. Users simply don’t know where to start finding art they like.
Art is too expensive
Users believe art is too expensive to consider buying it or investing in it.
There are too many sources
Searching for art is overwhelming - there are too many sources to find different kinds of art, and there is not one reputable source to learn, engage, and buy it.
Meet Heather
Heather needs a way to engage with art for pleasure and investment but doesn't know where to begin and believes she can't afford it.
“I’ve always appreciated and admired art, but when I think of buying it, I just think of older people who can pay for it”
- Heather
Ideating and Lo-Fi Prototyping
Personalization
Our approach was to create an on-boarding experience catered to the art novice. We focused on catering to visual tastes rather than art knowledge. By using Artsy’s Art Genome project, an algorithm that classifies art by certain features such as color, medium, and era, to recommend art based on visual preferences, in an on-boarding quiz, we gave users the power to find art relevant to their interests.
We created an interactive format that allowed users to personalize their viewing experience around their tastes and focus on user recommendations.
Investment Portal
Users were unfamiliar with investing in art, period. We created an investment portal to house instructional articles, videos, and art market updates to educate users on art investment benefits.
Our Research Takes a Turn
After our first round of usability testing, it became clear to us that users were not engaging with the investment portal but were very satisfied and engaged by the personalization feature.
It was time to pivot and dig deep in to what motivated our target users to seek out art.
We discovered from additional user research that users are not initially motivated by investing when they engage with art. They are, however, motivated to learn more about art and artists they like, and potentially find art for their homes.
New Design Direction
De-emphasize investment as a main component of the app
Focus on engagement, art education & personalization
Integrate investment information organically into product pages and editorial content to educate users over time
We focused our efforts on a new prototype, that bridged the gap between Artsy’s immense art database and user’s specific interests, tastes, and knowledge level.
Hi - Fi Updates
New Bottom Navigation
Removed ‘Invest’ as a main navigation feature and focused on Search, Home, Learn, and ‘My Artsy’ to focus users on engaging with artwork.
Personalized Search Feature
Used a suggested search portal based off of user preferences to guide users towards content they already enjoy.
‘My Artsy’ Hub
Focused ‘My Artsy’ hub on users saved pieces, artists they follow, and personal galleries. Users are given the power to curate Artsy’s content into their own boards, collections, and personal investments.
Organic Investment Integration
Integrate investment information into product pages and editorial content. Users are exposed to investment education overtime while focusing on engaging with art.