edward EG
E-commerce

Artist Center

How might we reimagine our artist-facing extranet to manage inventory and communicate actions regarding artwork?

Timeline 2-months
My role Graphic Designer (UI Designer)
Deliverables user research, user design

Overview

The Artist Center is an extranet for admins and artists at Artful Home to apply, manage, and review artwork for curated art collections.

Some of the critical capabilities include, but are not limited to, uploading photos of artwork, collecting product information, completing work orders, managing inventory, making payments, and communicating with Artful Home merchandisers for customer-facing operations.

Problem

Outcome

Inconsisent experience with five user interfaces Our interface feels like various platforms, which only creates more confusion for our users to navigate and take action.
Unified visual language The user interface is more cohesive and no longer feels like five different platforms.
There is limited automation to fulfiling orders It's a manual process to maintain artwork and communicate updates between customers and artists.
Improved intake process for new artwork We provided more guidance to artists on artwork requirements and descriptions to include in product pages.

Approach

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.

Methodology

I interviewed and observed artists and their workflows with the Artist Center to inform a service blueprint to help shape our future experience.

User Flow

tbd

User persona

Christine Entrepreneur

"I design for the woman who does not subscribe to fashion trends."

Demographic

52

Illinois

Fashion Designer

About Christine launched her first official clothing line right after college, securing several local boutiques that appreciated her exceptional craftsmanship and unique point of view. Christine’s work is in 200+ stores across the U.S., Canada, and Australia.
Goals
  • To distribute access to 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 fulfillment of orders.
Frustrations
  • The manual process to duplicate products for different colors or patterns.
  • Multiple emails for new orders instead of creating reports to fulfill.
  • The Artist Center needs to be optimized to allow the completion of orders on the iPad.

User persona

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."

Demographic

67

Wisconsin

Woodworker

About Clark is a self-taught woodworker with a deep respect for the furniture craftsmen of the 17th and 18th centuries. His profound passion for woodwork stemmed when he married his wife and decided to make bedroom furniture instead of purchasing.
Goals
  • To have his spouse be able to help him operate his studio by accepting new orders for him to build.
  • To spend more time designing and creating then working on admin tech updates like uploading new images.
  • To generate more sales.
Activities
  • Freight shipping of furniture for photoshoots for catalog and website.
  • Upload alternate images of furniture details.
  • Attend art shows and promote artwork that is available at artfulhome.com.
Frustrations
  • Unable to create a copy of a similar product and modify details about the 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.

Constraint

Critical

Business support and operations are the priority over supporting experience enhancements.

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.

Ideation

Our visual language needed a cohesive look and feel by revisiting our styling for Bootstrap.

Unified Visual Language

Color tokens, inputs, buttons, typography, and other reusable components

Features

Review your orders

Filter produce orders to determine the following shipment action.
Filter produce orders to determine the following shipment action.

Nested information

View details without leaving orders.
View details without leaving orders.

Application trackers

Apply for new curated collections or to be featured in the catalog.
Apply for new curated collections or to be featured in the catalog.

Sell your artwork

Starting point for all new and returning artists.
Web view of starting point for all new and returning artists.

Jury application

Select application type. Web view of select application type.

Artist History

Artist exhibitions, awards, and collections. Web view of artist exhibitions, awards, and collections.

Upload Artwork

Additional alternative product images. Web view of additional alternative product images.

Artist Dashboard

Artist communications and pending action items. Web view of artist communications and pending action items.

Artist inventory

Update shipping and production times for artwork.
Web view of update shipping and production times for artwork.

Manage your orders

Bulk actions for updating multiple orders. Web view of bulk actions for updating multiple orders.

Artist inventory

Update shipping and production times for artwork. Web view of manual shipment per individual order.

Takeaways

While I transitioned roles to pursue another opportunity, this experience taught me a lot about navigating frameworks with content management system and other software as a service (SAAS) integrations.
Lessons learned
  • Meet your users 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.
  • User Research is critical to inform user problems for existing experiences.
Some potential next steps
  • Conduct more extensive research on more common tasks artists and their teams are working on.
  • Continue to ideate on responsive design for complex workflows for artists on the go.
  • Create more guides for artists to improve photography for products in print catalog and retail pages.

More work

View all work