A Social Media Mobile Design for Fine Art Printmakers

My role: UX Researcher, Information Architect, Illustrator, Visual Designer, Product Designer, and Strategist

Problem Statement 

 I began the process of solving a better way to connect with other printmakers. My idea was to simplify the networking process, exchange information, and stay connected. Surely I wasn’t alone in this problem. 

Understanding the Problem  

To gather as much information as I could on Austin area printmakers, I sent a multiple question survey via email asking how printmakers connect and network, as well as their preferred form of communication. After the survey, I reached out to five active printmakers in Austin for my interview process. Each participant was eager to contribute and share their perspective and shortcomings when trying to network, retain contacts, and find and attend printmaking related events throughout the year.  

Painful Expenses 

A major obstacle for printmakers when networking is the financial burden of attending conferences. When a printmaker could attend a conference, it was invaluable to gain new contacts and find new opportunities to show work. When using popular social media outlets, printmakers couldn’t filter out distracting content to seek out other fellow artists and printmaking related events. Another pain point frequently brought up in the user interviews is the lack of a printmaking-specific online platform. With the use of convergent thinking, I decided to narrow my scope to refine this problem specifically for Austin area printmakers, work out any problems, then expand geographically. 

Insights from Research 

After the user interviews, secondary research, and insights about my user’s pain points, I started to synthesize my findings into an affinity diagram. When I was synthesizing my data, I discovered these patterns that started to form groups: 

1. Concerns related to attending conferences 

2. Social media concerns 

3. Networking

4. How Google helps 

5. General gripes 

Through these patterns the following insights were formed: 

1. Users need to attend conferences, print shows, and printmaking related events to grow their contacts, but the fees and traveling can be very expensive. 

2. Looking at existing social media platforms for printmaking related content was distracting and difficult. 

3. Users wanted a platform online that was only printmaking focused.

Meet Patty... 

After gathering my data and listening to my user interviews, I combined all my takeaways into one bundle that became my persona, Patty Printmaker. Patty’s needs were to connect with other printmakers in their area to advance her career, show her work, and gain artist opportunities. 

How to Help Patty? 

I needed a system to help me organize the different phases in which Patty Printmaker would interact with my product. I kept thinking about her need to connect with other printmakers in Austin; this detail informed the design decision to incorporate using GPS to find others with the use of a journey map to make these steps more clear and concise. 

Finding Design Solutions 

Based on the original pain points from the interviews, I tasked myself with trying to solve them. By using an interactive map where Patty could find other printmakers and print studios in her area, she no longer needed to struggle through traditional social media platforms. 

Key Elements 

When creating my user flow, I thought about how Patty would interact with my app each step of the way. I narrowed down my red routes to encompass the key elements of the app which make up about 90% of the user’s actions within my design. I considered what would be Patty’s frequent and critical activities on the site to improve speed and efficacy for her. 

After creating the main user flow, I eliminated some of the deprioritized features from my user stories. 

Starting to Sketch 

Once I had my general structure of the app created, I began sketching potential low fidelity wireframes of the app. I drew inspiration from similar apps that are in the social sector, like Instagram. For the map portion, I looked at Yelp and Google Maps. After a few iterations and tons of paper, I landed on what you see. I also decided to use the name “PrintSpace” as my working title for the app design. After getting my ideas on physical paper, I used the program POP by Marvel to animate my screens into a paper prototype and performed some tests with my design. 

Wireframes 

After testing my prototype, I found a few problems with the functionality of my design. I omitted the “hamburger menu” and a few other features because it wasn't supporting the needs of  the user. I began to develop my wireframes, which would be the basis for my wire flows and help determine which interactive elements will exist on the screens.  I focused on my main red route of finding local printmakers and connecting with them via email. 

Building Trust with Design 

While working on the technical layout of my design, I kept thinking about Patty and her needs and how to establish a visual identity. I created a mood board in order to design the overall vision for the app. For the imagery, I eventually added a bitmap as a nod to Andy Warhol’s graphic style and to reference a frequently used graphic element for printmakers so that Patty could know this design was for her. 

1. Typography - SF Pro, an Apple Font that is universal for all iOS devices.

2. Color - I chose red to represent the excitement of Patty meeting her peer printmakers and blue to show that she could trust the design and provide security.

3. UI Components - Text forms, buttons, and shadows were all included in my Style Guide to create an experience that is consistent and predictable for Patty. 

The Genesis of a Prototype

I began the much-anticipated process of creating my high fidelity mockups in Sketch at this point. I designed the screens based on the latest iOS iPhone screen size. Throughout the app, you'll see bright pops of color contrasted with white space. I wanted to retain as much white space as possible so the app wasn't cluttered and my users’ artwork would be the main focal point. From there I built a clickable prototype using Sketch and animation with Figma.

Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3…

After getting my PrintSpace Prototype finalized I began to conduct 5 moderated user tests using Zoom. Because of the COVID19 pandemic, all my tests needed to be performed remotely. This process started to help me refine the design and I began to see common findings:​

Findings from Testing:

1. Too many unlinked options on the map screen created confusion with my testers.

2. Users needed more information and context for the pay screen.

3. Users wanted to connect with other printmakers that didn’t have profiles created yet. (which seemed like a good problem.) 

4. Users wanted to scroll on the map to other locations. 

More Testing and Key Takeaways  

After conducting my second round of usability tests with another 5 participants, I was ready to launch my application, PrintSpace. Momentarily, I have to stop here and pursue other UX problems and adventures, but I learned a lot through this process and was able to be the sole stakeholder and solopreneur for the project which allowed me to flex my creative skillset while adhering to and following the Design Thinking Method of UX without any interruptions. 

Throughout the process, I wanted to maintain a focus on Patty and the printmakers involved while also considering the well-being of strengthening the community at this time. 

What’s next? I would love to develop more ways of fostering creative communities and plan to expand the scope of PrintSpace to Houston and Dallas.