Artist Center
Introduction
Overview
My contributions
Timeline
2-months
Role
Problem
Goals
Artwork management
Platform modernization
Constraints
Business support and operations are the priority over supporting experience enhancements.
Recurring website, email, and print campaigns continuously challenged our team’s velocity to focus on experience enhancements. As 1 of 2 designers, I had competing priorities with maintaining design operations for new digital campaigns and graphic design production for catalog and marketing emails.
When design capacity became available to support enhancements, technology partners were unavailable as their focus was primarily on the platform stability of our e-commerce site and content management system. Ultimately, executive decisions informed the urgency and priority to implement experience enhancements to both client and artist users.
Waterfall methodology
Research
By partnering closely with customer service and apparel and decor merchandisers, we coordinated five studio visits varying in apparel, jewelry, glass blowing, and furniture by partnering closely with customer service and apparel and decor merchandisers.
I interviewed and observed artists and their workflows with the Artist Center to inform a service blueprint to help shape our future experience.
Methods
- Service blueprint — to inform end-to-end artist experience as part of Artist Center redesign
- User personas — to humanize artists and their goals, activities, and frustrations with the Artist Center
User insights
Service blueprint
User personas
Christine Entrepreneur
“I design for the woman who does not subscribe to fashion trends.“
About
Goals
- To distribute access for her accounts with her Director of Production and Director of Sales & Operations.
- To grow her apparel brand and ensure quality and customer satisfaction
- To streamline her product fulfillment process by creating bulk edits for when a new product line is ready
Activities
- Coordinates with Artful Home CEO and Merchandisers for exclusive apparel collections
- Ships product to Artful Home for photoshoots
- Relies on assistants to complete fufillment on orders
Frustrations
- The manual process to duplicate products for different colors or patterns
- Multiple emails for new orders instead of creating reports to fulfil
- Artist Center is not optimized for tablets
Clark Builder
“My furniture is inspired by the clean lines of the Shaker form, allowing the highly figured domestic and exotic woods I use to be the focal point.”
About
Goals
- To have his wife be able to help him operate his studio by accepting new orders for him to build
- To spend more time designing and creating then calling frequently to get help uploading new images
- To provide high-quality images to showcase his work and grow his studio
Activities
- Freight shipping of furniture for photoshoots for catalog and website
- Upload alternate images of furniture details
- Attends art shows and promotes artwork live at artfulhome.com
Frustrations
- Not able to create a copy of a similar product modify details about material
- Unclear on what all the different colored buttons mean
- Doesn’t know how to format images to upload to be high resolution for print
Solution
In our endeavor to harmonize the user experience across the Artist Center, a subsidiary brand of Artful Home, we initiated a process to transition multiple interface pages to Bootstrap. This strategic move marked the initial step in modernizing our visual styles and establishing a unified aesthetic.
By embracing Bootstrap, we gained enhanced flexibility and the ability to streamline our page templates, resulting in significant cost savings in terms of maintenance and fostering greater consistency across our digital presence.
Bootstrap Visual Language
Color tokens, inputs, buttons, typography, and other reusable components
Key features
Review your orders
Centralized information
View details without leaving orders
Application trager
Key screens
Sell your artwork
Jury application
Artist history
Upload artwork
Artist dashboard
Artist inventory
Manage your orders
Individual purchase orders
Reflection
While I transitioned roles to pursue another opportunity TBD
Next steps
- User Research is critical to inform user problems for existing experiences.
- Meet artists where they are in their workflow and prioritize usability and mobility.
- Invest in developing relationships with customer service and they share insights and the voice of the customer.