Open Art
How might we design an art experience that feels personal, one that meets people where they are, rather than expecting them to already belong?
Timeline
Apr – May 2024
Role / Context
Product Designer
Leveraged Skills
Design Thinking
THE PROBLEM
People aren't falling out of love with art. They're falling out of love with how it's presented to them.
Most art events aren't unwelcoming on purpose, The crowd moves fast, The wall copy assumes familiarity and without anything to hold onto, it's easy to feel like you're missing something everyone else already has. The friction isn't the art itself. It's everything surrounding it.
THE SOLUTION
A mobile app designed around three moments where people disengage and what it takes to keep them.
Open Art doesn't try to replace the gallery. It removes what gets in the way of it. Every feature in the app exists because something in the research said this is where people stop feeling welcome.
DECISIONS
One problem. One feature. One result.
OUTCOME
The app doesn't do more than the problem required
Every screen traces back to something a user said in an interview or did during a test. The next step is whether those solutions hold when the content set scales beyond the prototype.
💭
What this project reinforced…
Restraint is a design decision
Optimizing the experience flow had more impact than adding features. Pacing, clarity, and decision points across the journey mattered more than what the app could do.
Next Steps...
As a concept, i need to enhance interactivity across the prototype and test the end-to-end user journey from onboarding to artwork discovery to event selection.