Introductory heading image for PUBLiC project page.

UI/UX Designer | Jan - April 2020

PUBLiC for Civic Art Engagement
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Mobile AR Experience for Civic Art Engagement

By partnering with Metro21, a smart cities research institute devoted to finding solutions for existing challenges in metro areas within Pittsburgh, I studied how public art contributes to the city’s livability. We created PUBLiC, a mobile AR product that allows people to visually express and connect with local artists, while learning more about existing public artworks.

Role
Project Leader
UX Designer
UX Researcher

Team
Michelle Lee
Lea Emerlyn
Yue Jiang

Key Methods
User Research
Storyboarding
Rapid Prototyping

Duration
Jan - April 2020,
14 weeks

CONTEXT

Project Brief

A centralized mobile AR experience for citizens to easily discover up-to-date artwork, while conversing with other art viewers and artists. With direct navigation to art sites, people can also easily access information about artworks through the camera view. It also enhances social interaction by encouraging public art discussion with the community through uniquely captured experiences.

Dippy the Dinosaur public sculpture

01 UNDERSTAND

Problem

Public art is meant to be readily accessible to everyone and increase livability within a city. Though citizens in Pittsburgh are interested in viewing public art, there is a lack of engagement. so..
⚡️ How might we enhance engagement between communities of artists and art viewers in the public art scene? ⚡️

02 RESEARCH

Why does it matter?

There are existing barriers that people face when viewing art. Though it is widely known that public art enhances livability, this is assuming that people are engaging with one another. We noticed that public art at its current state has a major problem:
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The intention of public art contradicts the reality of the actual experience.

Even though there is a low threshold of entry, where there is no fee or particular time required to see it, people are not conversing about it.

02 RESEARCH

Analyzing Existing Data.

Based on existing information from stakeholder and field interviews conducted for the Pittsburgh's Office of Public Arts, we created stakeholder and customer journey maps. This helped us reveal how art viewers and other stakeholders interact with the city's art.

📑 Stakeholders

We distinguished our main stakeholders and analyzed each role and interaction involved in the public art scene. There are art viewers, art creators, maintenance and managers, property owners, and city sponsors. We verified with Metro21 to ensure we identified and visually displayed every connection and level of impact in creating and viewing public artworks.

📑 Journey Map

The customer journey map captures the current journey of an art viewer and clarified existing pain points. It helps break down steps that are involved in the process of actively viewing public art.

📑 Think-Aloud Protocols

We also conducted think-aloud protocols to analyze existing platforms, such as an art website by the local Pittsburgh artist, James Simon, to understand design opportunities that can improve the experience of learning about public artworks.

02 RESEARCH

Data Synthesis.

We interviewed 5 active art viewers and a local artist to create an affinity diagram that organizes our observations. Our goal was to better understand an art viewer's thoughts and processes when interacting and viewing public art.

📑 Affinity Diagram

From our interview notes and and secondary research findings, we merged our collected data and identified an ongoing problem in Pittsburgh’s public art scene. We found that:
There is little to no interaction between the artists and art viewers

Affinity diagramming session

02 RESEARCH

Feature Prioritization.

After finalizing what mission operators need to see and what information they need to access, we listed required features discovered in our research to start understanding how the structure of our interface might work.
This helped us better understand how the main interface should be designed and which features should be put at the forefront to execute tasks quicker.

02 RESEARCH

Key Insights.

From our contextual interviews and think-aloud protocols, there are 3 main barriers that people face in their art viewing experiences.

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Proximity
We saw that people, perhaps unknowingly, confined their experience with public art to when they were proximally close to the art piece.

“I would only talk about the piece with someone else if we’re near it.”

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Prior Knowledge
People thought they needed background knowledge to talk about art.

“I don’t feel comfortable talking about art unless I know something about it.”

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Privacy
People viewed art as a private, individual experience that should be unadulterated by others’ influence and interpretation.

“I don’t know if people want to talk about art and I don’t want to disturb others’ art experiences”

03 IDEATE

Storyboarding & speed dating.

We ideated several scenarios based on the needs derived from our previous activity and presented them to several participants in order to see their reactions to them. During speed dating, we went through all the storyboards with the participants to validate user needs and values, and identify conceptual risk factors.

Our validated user needs:
• Users need privacy, otherwise they prefer not to participate
• Users need useful visual and contextual information delivered in a non-intrusive medium
• Users need to feel creatively empowered in order to engage
• Users prefer an efficient way to directly contact the artist
• Users prefer both ways of drawing and writing to encourage all users to express their ideas

Initial storyboards for ideation

FINAL PRODUCT

PUBLiC for Civic Art Engagement

A mobile AR product that allows people to learn about public artworks nearby and connect with communities by sharing captured experiences.

1. Scan art pieces to view interesting facts
2. Express your thoughts by commenting
3. Capture your experience using the camera + digital tools‍

Viewers can contribute to discussions and visually communicate with communities and artists in a space of shared common interest.

1. Navigate and discover nearby artworks
2. Visit artworks to view artist facts and community drawings‍

‍This feature helps motivate people to interact more with the community by actively viewing pieces in order to unlock or access certain drawings.

1. Communicate with artists directly
2. View all your captured experiences
3. Comment and react to other drawings‍

‍This feature motivates people to communicate more with each other, Reducing the threshold of viewing and talking about art pieces.


Final User Flow
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This feature motivates people to communicate more with each other, Reducing the threshold of viewing and talking about art pieces.

@2024 LAUREN PARK

Let's build something together.

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