Case Study
ARTIVORE
UX Consultant ・February - March 2021
Out of the 50,000+ arts businesses in New York State, 1/3 of them call New York County (aka Manhattan) home. All of these organizations are asking the same question:
How do we grow our audience?
Artivore has an answer.
Overview
Artivore is a starup seeking to breach barriers to arts participation through technology, as well as connect cultural consumers with nearby arts organizations.Their main product, 'Itineraries' are user-generated half-day plans of a cultural adventure (eg. art gallery) and secondary location (usually food or drinks).
As of February 2021, 4% of unique site visitors converted to members. This case study examines the viability of "Itineraries" and solutions to encourage audience acquisition.
Client
Artivore
Founder, Melissa Weisberg
New York, NY
Team
4 UX Designers
Time
3 weeks
Role
UX Research
UX Writing
Wireframes
Client Contact
Sprint Goals
-
Refresh user research to verify product target audience
-
Suggest clarifications to product
Tools
Canva, Figma, Keynote, Miro, Maze
Contribution
In this website redesign and product development sprint, I led our team through research and product development to merge storytelling and product audience growth.
Research
"With some people I'll get wine and steak after;
others I'll get coffee and a donut."
—Participant No. 5
We assumed prospective users would be looking for things to do around the city. After speaking with 7 prospective users, all who were familiar with the NYC arts and culture scene, we learned they spend most of their time coordinating their plan, or getting ready.
The factors that greenlit a plan?
Flexibility and trust–multiple options at their fingertips from a reputable source.
Meet Jocelyn, our target audience.
Our persona, Jocelyn, was created from affinity mapping 400+ data points generated from user interviews. This persona marks a stark difference from the client's previous research, which centered mid-career women with kids. In contrast, Jocelyn is a single, early-career professional who grew up with the arts.
When Jocelyn wants to attend an arts & culture event, she is most focused on searching for an event and a companion, as well as preparing to go out.
There, and back again: a night in Jocelyn's shoes.
Jocelyn's energy peaks between "Artistic Exchange" and "Post-Processing." Her most stressful moments happen while coordinating plans during "Build Up" and "Intense Prep."
Search
Prepare
Share
Early Design
Showcase
Early feedback suggested the product was indeed viable. Since findability and search were the first barriers to participation, we focused on flexible search in the design stage to make the product more viable.
An early sketch highlighted various 'Itineraries' on the homepage, possibly spotlights for marginalized voices.
Usability Test
Find by tag, find by
location, save a plan
5 users tested the site for findability and
controllability. They struggled most with searching plans, in terms of time taken and rated difficulty.
Comment on a plan
Heuristic Analysis
Accessibility
Controllability
Findability
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...
Before proceeding with design, we evaluated
the site via heuristic analysis and usability
testing to confirm our "search, prepare, share" insight. The results?
Feature: Food For Thought
An early sketch I contributed was inspired from a user interview in which the participant mentioned event flyers placed on lamp-posts; these flyers generally have partially-cut information on the bottom that's easily rip-able.
Food For Thought emphasized flexible plan-making, where the art / adventure (A, the constant) could be saved with food (B, C, D, the variable) considering a myriad of social contexts.
This selective save feature tied together the "art meets food" concept the client had been struggling to communicate.
D
B
C
A
Iteration
Search
Since early usability tests indicated that search was a high priority for prospective members, we focused on testing search capabilities in mid-fi. Splitting the search into clear tabs performed remarkably well, with 5/5 successfully searching by tag and location.
In high fidelity, rather than splitting the functions into separate tabs as we did in the mid-fi, we combined the functions into a single page (à la Yelp and The Infatuation). This iteration also was successful in terms task directness, though completion was slower due to limitations with Figma.
Prepare
Since Itineraries are user-generated, they vary in consistency. Structuring these events in a consistent way would help
Some microcopy helped create structure. By dividing the Itinerary into three key elements—"The Snack" at the top (the lede) and the full plan under "Full Helping" (broken into "The Art" and "The Plan), we were able to tackle the transition from "Search" to "Prepare" as well as "Prepare" itself.
The client had previously expressed that she often heard that the concept was great, but didn't tie together nicely; this food-forward language helped unify the concept.
Share
We brought Food For Thought into high fidelity to demonstrate tying together "search, prepare, share" into a single feature. Featured here is the mobile
Search:
the Itinerary is segmented and easily scannable so users can determine if the plan is right for their situation
Prepare:
Users can save different combinations to fit different contexts. Sample discussion questions are provided on the back of the flip cards.
Share:
Users can easily provide or view community feedback.
