Problem: Art museums hold an abundance of artworks and artifacts from every era of humanity. In other words, they can be amazing but overwhelming, especially for the busy museum-goer. From the typical young art-enthusiast with a weekend full of plans to the driven father of 2 just looking for a fun family-friendly activity, anyone can benefit from a little planning ahead to make the visit go as smooth as possible and make the most of what the art museum has to offer.
Solution: Design an app and a responsive website, specifically as a revamp for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), to advertise exhibitions and events, provide museum information to patrons, and enable patrons to schedule visits.
Brainstorm & Ideation
This revamped design of the app and website for the VMFA will allow to users easily access exhibition and event information. In addition to this, the new interactive map feature will allow museum-goers to add specific exhibitions to an interactive map feature they can use to efficiently plan out their visit. These features and more will effect both art enthusiasts and activity-seekers alike by allowing them to make the most of their time at the art museum. We will measure effectiveness by analyzing app and website activity and reading reviews about customer experiences.
User Research & User Personas
The personas defined are based on research, interview, and survey findings.
Initial screen sketches were done for featured pages in the case study, including the homepage, exhibition pages (collection and specific), interactive museum map, and museum information pages.
This phase helped in conceptualizing the setup and content of each page which defined the information architecture for the sitemap.
Based of the wireframe prototypes, user testing was conducted with 5 participants. The wireframes were updated based on the observed interactions and feedback from the users.
The high-fi prototype was created with more interaction, features, and a refined design system complete with a defined color palette, fonts, and an icon style guide.