CRIT. Mobile App Design - Case Study

project overview

SUMMARY

Every artist needs feedback and critiques to improve. It always helps to get a fresh set of eyes on your artwork because others offer a different perspective and can suggest ways to make improvements and changes.

If you’re working around other artists, you’ll naturally find encouragement and critiques circulating but what about working by yourself? It’s hard to find ways to acquire valuable critiques from fellow artists.

The Crit. app design is intended to connect artists who are searching for feedback on their work.

PROJECT SCOPE

Project Type: Mobile App Design
Platform: Mobile Phones
Deliverables: User Research, Wireframes, Prototypes
Tools: Pen & Paper, Google forms, Zoom, Adobe Illustrator, Figma

MY ROLE

User Research
UX Design
UI Design
Logo + Branding

THE PROBLEM

Every artist needs feedback and critiques to improve. Almost 100% of artists want feedback on their work, but they don’t necessarily have easy access to it.

THE SOLUTION

CRIT. is designed to spark artist interaction and encourage learning about and participating in the constructive criticism of fine art.

research & deliverables

user RESEARCH

Create and send out a survey
List and review competitors
Analyzing research
Summarize takeaways
Determine user pain points
Determine user goals

DELIVERABLES

Competition Analysis
Google Forms Survey
User Personas
Empathy Maps
User Flows
User Testing

Main takeaways:

80% of artists appreciate receiving constructive criticism on their work
95% of artists would like to have more opportunities to participate and connect with other artists in a constructive way
Almost 100% of surveyors posted their art to Instagram as their main sharing platform for feedback

SURVEY RESULTS

Reviewed other art-sharing apps:

Instagram
Reddit Art Forums
DeviantArt
WetCanvas

Competitive analysis

While the features that we need are all there, the pain points are that the platform is not dedicated to fine art, the users are not all artists, and the platforms are not intended or encouraging constructive criticism.

Main Disadvantages:

Platforms are not fine art specific
Algorithms can be discouraging and can have a negative affect on users
Ads are distracting
Too many categories or topics that are unrelated to fine art

DEFINING USER PROBLEMs and goals through User stories

Conducting interviews with artists and writing user stories from their responses helped me to narrow down and define the problems they were facing.

Users are frustrated there isn’t a more accessible way to participate in giving and receiving feedback on fine art
Users are not fulfilled by posting on Instagram and other platforms because comments are typically received as positive and complimentary, not constructive
Users feel nervous and particular about receiving criticism on their artwork from just anyone

After reviewing the user problems and writing the user stories I was able to lay out three main user goals.

Participate in giving and receiving feedback on fine art
Engage with artists working in the same medium
Learn about and become more comfortable giving and receiving constructive criticism

user personas

This user persona represents users who are seeking constructive criticism and feedback on their artwork. They are beginner artists who recognize the importance of discussing artwork in a constructive way. Due to having a busy schedule, they are frustrated, finding it hard to connect with artists. They are seeking an outlet that provides an artist community and ways to give and receive feedback on artwork. They are looking to make new connections through critiques and gain experience discussing artwork.

This user persona represents users who are seeking to engage and network with other artists that work in the same medium. They are intermediate artists who are settled into their careers and have a preferred style so they need to be able to search under their preferred medium. Although intermediate in their medium, they are frustrated that they haven’t had more opportunities to participate in critiquing artwork. They are looking to improve their critique skills and vocabulary. They are motivated to have opportunities to connect with like-minded artists one on one or through messaging.

This user persona represents users who are open to the idea of critiques and want to engage more with other artists, but don’t feel comfortable yet sharing with a wide group. They need to be able to curate their own groups for critiques or have the ability to choose to post privately to selected followers. They are motivated to connect with other artists and be able to engage more in giving feedback to in turn become more comfortable with having their own art critiqued. They are eager to use a platform that is dedicated to Fine Art and critiquing artwork.

Sketches + lo-fi wireframes

After After reaching a grounding point with the user research, I began sketching users flows and ideating what screens the app would require. I translated my user flows and research into sketches and low-fidelity wireframes in Figma. The process resulted in and informed multiple iterations of the flows and sketched frames.

LOGO + BRANDING

For this project I dedicated time to investigating and learning about design systems, figma components and autolayout to create consistency and efficiency in my designs. I ended up using Instagram’s UI kit and Apple’s IOS 16 UI kit in my high fidelity wireframes and created unique components and icons of my own.

I was inspired by Instagram’s interface and I knew that users were already familiar with it.

Since artwork is already potentially very colorful, I didn’t want to have too many colors involved in the CRIT. branding. I opted for a simple color palette, choosing colors that wouldn’t take away or overpower artwork.