Tate Discoveries
A native mobile application providing interactive tours at the Tate Modern Gallery.
The problem
Tate Modern is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and is in fact, one of the largest of its kind in the world. Its mission is to promote the public understanding and enjoyment of British, modern and contemporary art. However, the gallery's current physical experience for visitors does not aid or encourage discovery, with a confusing layout and navigation.
My team was set a concept brief to design a highly engaging digital experience for Tate visitors.
The toughest challenge
The brief suggested looking into profile-based suggestions. Yet, our research showed that many users found art impossible to categorise. Additionally, the Tate does not curate its exhibitions by artist or type but by theme.
After several usability tests, we decided to remove the categories and profiles altogether. Instead we focused on designing a few highly-engaging, curated tours.
Client
Tate Modern (Concept Project)
UXDI Course (General Assembly)
Timeline
2 week sprint
Team
Zena Zerai
Ella Sloper
Federico Olmeda
Martin Robertson
My Role & Tasks
User Researcher & Designer
5 user interviews,
2 guerrilla interviews with
Tate staff,
Designed low-mid-fidelity wireframes,
10 usability tests (1 guerrilla
test at the Tate),
Facilitator for team presentation
Outcome
We were able to design an interactive native mobile application. The app suggested exhibitions for visitors to see, whilst enabling them to easily navigate the gallery. It also allowed them to enjoy an enhanced experience at the Tate.
The app incorporated AR technology ideas, an avatar, map, virtual guided tours, interactive activities and a social sharing feature.
Read the in-depth case study below
Discover
Site Visit
Competitor Analysis
Website Audit
Screener Survey
User InterviewsGuerila interviews
Define
Affinity Mapping
Personas
Scenarios
Problem Statement
User Experience Map
User Flows
Develop
Design Studio
Feature Prioritisation
Paper Prototypes
Mid-fidelity Wireframes
Clickable Prototypes
Usability Tests
Guerrilla Testing
Deliver
High Fidelity Prototype
Presentation
Analysing the competition
We were keen to learn what other museums and galleries were doing to create highly engaging experiences for visitors. This would enable us to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the Tate's competitors, in addition to spotting any potential opportunities for our app.
Observations
-
The majority of apps were aimed at children or catered to short-term exhibitions.
Opportunities
-
None aided discovery or navigation.
-
None represented the whole gallery.
Science Museum 'Treasure Hunters' app aimed at children
Seeing the Tate in action
As a group we went to the Tate to observe the space and visitors in action, while conducting guerrilla interviews with visitors and staff.
Observations prove to be extremely valuable, as what users say, doesn't always correlate to what they do.
-
Taking photos | This was common with all visitors.
-
Small Text Descriptions | Visitors needed to crowd around art to read the descriptions.
-
Unclear Navigation | This meant visitors repeated sections of exhibitions.
Identifying our users
In order to find out more about users experiences and frustrations when visiting galleries, we sent out a screener survey and conducted in depth contextual inquiry interviews. We targeted those users we knew had visited galleries and museums or had an interest in culture.
75 Screener participants
17 User Interviews
60% visit Tate a few times a year
Spotting trends
We synthesised all of our research with a process called affinity mapping. This enabled us to identify patterns and common pain points.
"If there’s an interactive element it makes it more enjoyable"
"I want a lovely afternoon and to have gained some kind of knowledge"
Defining our user
We identified two very different personas, the 'Culture Vulture' and 'Social Visitor'. Eventually we focused on the Social Visitor, Hannah, as her characteristics were most prevalent in our user research.
Creating a persona, helped us to focus on the user and avoid letting our desire for features override the users' needs.
Defining the problem
From here we were able to construct a problem statement for our persona Hannah, ensuring further direction and purpose to our designs.
Hannah wants to go to the Tate with her friends. However, she doesn't know what to see and feels frustrated.
Hannah needs a way to guide her discovery of art around the Tate.
Designing the happy path
We then designed a user flow of the happy path for Hannah. This helped us map out the key actions she would need to take within the app to solve the problem statement and which screens to design first.
Sketching solutions
We held a design studio, where we sketched out various solutions to our problem statement. We then followed this with a feature prioritisation, deciding on those features with the highest impact and the lowest effort for our MVP.
My sketches from the design studio
Testing our designs
Wireframes were created to represent the content on each screen and create early low-fidelity, clickable prototypes to test with users.
User flow screens for 2nd prototype
Guerilla testing
We conducted several rounds of usability tests and took our mid-fidelity clickable prototype to the Tate and local cafes to do some guerrilla usability tests.
Here we gained some really valuable insights, particularly from Tate visitors on what users liked about our app and where it needed improving.
Preference Page Challenge
The brief asked us to look into creating profile's and suggestions within the app. However, on testing, we found many users didn’t know how to describe art. Consequently, they would get stuck on the preference screen, unable to choose categories and left feeling dumb.
We made the decision to remove the categories altogether. Instead, focusing on designing tours that were interesting enough to entice users, but not so complex as to overwhelm them.
Final design
1
2
3
4
Filtering | We removed the categories, instead offering a limited selection of tours. Filtering by price only.
Summary | Visual enticement, for users to get a sense of the exhibition.
Map | Expandable map provided an easy way for users to locate themselves in relation to the exhibition, while in the gallery.
Avatar | Familiar tone of the avatar, encourages users to follow along with the tour.
1
2
3
4
Tour Page
Tour | Users wanted the app to take them straight to the first activity rather than view a summary list.
Activities | We included fun interactive AR features, as users found this more engaging.
Routing | Users wanted a structure to their route but were concerned of missing activities. This feature shows where they are in relation to the next activity.
Completion bar | This gives users a sense of how far along they are in the tour.
Conclusion
Overall we were happy with what we produced as a team. I was able to contribute to the research, usability testing and wireframe creation on Sketch, whilst learning new skills from the graphic designer on the team.
What I learned
-
If the product includes something visual (e.g. artwork), it's important to let those visuals sing. Keep a simple design throughout to let the artwork shine.
-
Research is important for not only understanding the causes of users' frustrations but also users' motivations. In this case users weren't motivated by being rewarded points but by furthering their knowledge of art.
Next Steps
There were lots of ideas that could be incorporated to make the application really engaging.
-
Multiple language options for tourists.
-
Additional accessibility, including audio navigation/description
-
Feature to save tour information for later reference.
Thanks for reading!
If you'd like to learn more about the project or just have a chat, please feel free to send me an email.