Enhanced the visitor experience at at an art gallery in downtown Vancouver, BC through strategic implementation of impactful touchpoints.
CLIENT: CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY
The Scenario
This was a volunteer position to improve the experience that visitors had to the Contemporary Art Gallery in downtown Vancouver, BC. Along with my team, we first audited the existing visitor experience before pinpointing pain points and making suggestions to improve viewer engagement.
PROBLEM SPACE
The gallery reported a low attendance rate, and the Google reviews showed a lack of satisfaction from their guests. Further investigation demonstrated that these factors were contributing to the issues:
Lack of interest or understanding: Most guests did not have a deep understanding of contemporary art, which could make it difficult for them to appreciate or engage with the artwork.
Intimidating or unwelcoming atmosphere: Many reviews stated feeling intimidated and like they were not welcome at the gallery, due to a lack of staff and infrastructure.
Poor communication about the artwork's message: visitors found it challenging to connect with the artwork so they felt uninterested in returning.
To gain clarity on these insights, we started off with a full audit gallery’s service design - for both their in-person and online presence.
DESIGN PROCESS
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We interviewed the staff at the front desk about their typical visitor, and also looked at the demographics of their social media engagement and Google reviews.
This helped us get really clear on the ideal visitor we were designing for.
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From there we put together some empathy tools to help us with our process.
These tools included a persona, a service map, and journey maps for both the existing customer journey and the improved one. They were informed by the data and insights found during the audit and the interview process.
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We then went through the customer journey maps, and isolated pain points to tackle during the service design process.
Once we were complete, we proposed to the gallery which pain-points we were going to address, using data to justify these decisions.
Persona
Service Map
Journey Map: Current Experience
Journey Map: Updated Service Blueprint
WHY?
The gallery had plenty of paper pamphlets distributed around the space. Not only were they hard to find initially, but they were also confusing to follow, had limited information, and wasted a lot of resources.
We also would have had to specifically request more accessible pages if any of us had trouble reading the small print on the pamphlets.
After our research and planning stages were finished, my design team decided to split up each pain point into tasks that each individual could address.
I decided to focus my efforts on this project on designing a digital system to convey the information, effectively replacing the papers.
DESIGN GUIDELINES
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Cohesive & Comprehensive
In order to completely eradicate paper from the gallery, the system would need to have all of the information on artwork and installations within it
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Simple to Understand
Many visitors found the both the art and the navigation around the gallery confusing Simplicity and clarity in the design system would improve guest satisfaction.
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Accessible to Everyone
Functions and tools that enhance accessibility would need to be built into this system, with a simple way to access them.
DESIGN OUTCOME:
