DePaul Art Museum

PROBLEM

The DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) faces challenges regarding lack of engagement from the DePaul University community and overall surrounding community.

At the start of our project, we first met with the DPAM staff and discussed their needs and concerns. They were concerned with the overall lack of engagement with their museum as well as the large database of art pieces they are not able to display physically.

We ideated areas of opportunity based on our initial discussions with the DPAM staff:

  • Virtual or online experiences in a museum setting
  • Using the existing CatalogIt HUB (Database where DPAM's permanant/online collection is stored)
  • Breaking down classist barriers for appreciating art

SOLUTION

How can we increase interest into the museum virtually?

An interactive experience through a virtual tour that is based on a personality quiz that finds your #DPAMArtMatch. This allows interested visitors to explore DPAM’s exclusively-online collection based on five personality results from the quiz without having to come to the museum in person.

A PEAK INTO THE FINAL DESIGN

Expand your knowledge of art and experience the pieces that DePaul Art Museum has to offer, without being physically present.

We designed a virtual experience, compatible for both desktop and mobile, that allows users to engage with the DePaul Art Museum's database of art from the comfort of their home. This virtual experience promotes connection between DPAM and the DePaul University community, the Lincoln Park neighborhood, as well as the overall interested community anywhere in the world.

Get matched with art that interests you.

A curated personality quiz allows the user to swipe on artwork to indicate their preferences. The quiz matches the user's answers to one of five personality types: the historian, chameleon, traditionalist, thrill seeker, and the sensitive. Each personality match displays a group of artwork similar to the pieces that the user liked the most from the quiz.

Additionally, if the user does not want to take the personality quiz, they have the option to skip it and go straight to the virtual tour.

Go to the museum without physically being there.

A virtual tour of the physical DePaul Art Museum showcases the museum's exclusively online artwork. Each room is designated for one of the five personality matches. Users can navigate by pressing the arrows and virtually walk around the museum, as if they were strolling through it in the real world.

Learn about the DePaul Art Museum and its database of exclusively online artwork.

Users can click each artwork displayed in the virtual tour to read a description about the piece.

They can explore further information and updates of the DePaul Art Museum through a virtual brochure, which is updated on a weekly basis.

RESEARCH & INSIGHTS

Our initial research involved studying various virtual experiences that other museums have integrated to increase engagement. Building on this initial research as well as taking in consideration the needs of DPAM, we conceived the concept of a virtual tour that enables users to immerse themselves in the museum virtually as if they were physically present. To further promote engagement with the museum, we opted for a personality quiz that will present users with a customized tour, allowing users more interactivity with the museum virtually.

Next, we explored DPAM's possible target demographic, identifying those who are most likely to engage with the museum.

After ideating DPAM's possible target audience, we engaged with individuals within that demographic and held discussions with them about their thoughts on DPAM.

FINDINGS

Potential visitors to DPAM are seeking experiences that enrich their understanding of art and contribute to their overall experience while being part of the DePaul University and Lincoln Park community.

Our findings have identified various opportunities to enhance engagement within the art world in relation to DPAM. Based on our user research, we developed three user personas that represent DPAM's community.

USER FLOW

1. Starting from the existing DePaul domain, users may enter the personality quiz through a call-to-action.
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2. User swipes left or right through the artwork in the personality quiz.
↳ Additionally, user may also skip the personality quiz and go straight to the 3D tour.
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3. After completion, the quiz brings the user to the room of artwork personalized based on their art match.
↳ User may also explore other rooms besides the room that they matched with from the personality quiz.

Similarly to dating apps, the personality quiz allows the user to swipe right on artwork they like and swipe left on artwork they aren’t fond of.

The swipe design used in dating apps is widely recognized, many users will likely navigate it without difficulty or confusion due to the common recognition of this feature. Ultimately, using a widely known design breaks down classist barriers to understanding art.

The curated personality quiz assigns five personality results to match a user with art that may interest them.

We pursued this feature to promote more interactivity between the users and DPAM. It allows users to have fun and become more immersed in the art that DPAM has to offer, ultimately helping to achieve DPAM's goal of increased engagement with their museum.

A virtual tour utilizing the same design as when previewing a prospective apartment or home on the internet.

A virtual tour caters to various groups: individuals who do not reside near DPAM, those with disabilities, and anyone curious about the museum's offerings. It allows users to immerse themselves in the museum virtually, providing an experience similar to being physically present

USER TESTING

We collected information on how users would interact with our designs to improve them. We conducted user testing with ten participants based on three user tasks we wanted the users to successfully complete.

1. Find their #DPAMArtMatch (personality quiz),

Task 1: Imagine you are a newcomer to the art scene, and you stumble across the DePaul Art Museum’s art personality quiz. Find your #DPAMArtMatch and enter the customized 3D Tour.

2. Begin the personalized 3D Tour after personality quiz or,

Task 2: Imagine you are an elementary school teacher who is wanting to show their students a collection of inclusive art. You know that the DePaul Art Museum has recently unveiled an exclusively online tour of their permanent collection. Find the standardized 3D Tour and begin the tour.

3. Skip the personality quiz and jump straight into 3D tour

Task 3: Imagine you are a DePaul student going through the DPAM art personality quiz, and you suddenly want to enter the 3D tour. Enter the 3D tour in the middle of the quiz.

More guidance is needed regarding the curated quiz, along with clarification on the functionality of the liking and disliking buttons.

Users were confused about which side to use for liking or disliking an art piece. We changed the symbols of the like and dislike buttons to provide more clarity. Additionally, to enhance clarity further, we added a help option that gives users a short description of the quiz.

More clarification needed when entering the personality quiz and 3D tour.

There was some confusion when entering the tour and quiz. We abandoned the idea of a button overlaying a picture to access both the quiz and tour. Instead, we integrated the tour into the quiz and opted to place the "enter quiz" button under the art piece.

When skipping the quiz, switch the orientation of buttons on the popup

When user testers attempted to skip the quiz, they instinctively pressed the right button before realizing it was the continue button. We switched the orientation of the buttons and added a description to confirm if the user wants to skip the quiz.

REFLECTION & TAKEAWAYS

As the last class of my undergrad career, I'm proud of this project and have learned a lot from this experience. Although I am proud of the project's outcome, I believe there's still room for improvement.
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What I've learned...
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• Setting weekly goals or giving each other (my team in this case) a timeline of deadlines to meet in order to stay more organized.
• Making sure to seek as much help as possible was beneficial. It helped to gather a variety of fresh opinions and critiques to improve our project.
• Communicate as much as possible with the clients in order to make sure we're reaching all of their needs.
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What I'll do differently in the future...
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• In my future projects, I'd like to focus more on the initial research before designing.
• Doing more rounds of user testing and to a bigger sample of user testers, to gain a variety insights of the project.
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At the end of this two-quarter-long class, each group created presentations to showcase our projects to the DPAM staff and also present them in DePaul's College of Computing and Digital Media tech showcase, where each major of this college displayed their final projects created in their senior capstone class. However, this feature is not yet officially implemented on DPAM's website, as it takes months to a year to get approvals from the university and DePaul's developers.

Pictures from our final presentation showcase!