Minor Project
29.8.2022 -9.12.2022 (Week 1 - 15)
Lew Se Win / 0347637 / Bachelor
of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Minor Project
ARTTREK
LECTURES
Week 1
Mr. Mike briefed us about this module. This module includes a
multidisciplinary project on which we work with computer science and business
students. Following that, Mr. Mike briefed us on the projects that we can work
on this semester. We have a total of 6 projects, and each project has its own
industry collaborator.
1. ARTTREK (3groups) - futureverse
- Call or combine street art community
- Digital, physical (AR) art, sculpture
2. CONNECTED village (2 groups) -futureverse
- Home school
- Social and educational activities
3. CATALYST MATCH (2 groups) -futureverse
- Career profiling tool
- Personality profiling tools
4. WATERED (1 group) - waterED association
- Water education playbook
- Educational interactive game
- Completing from senior's work
5. Sang Guardian Project (1 group) - R&D studio
6. House of Wisdom Project (1 group) - R&D studio
INSTRUCTIONS
Week 1 - Contextual Research
In the first week, we are required to complete contextual research. This
section is nothing about designing yet, as emphasised by Mr. Mike. Besides,
our group also had our first meeting with business students on Friday, as they
were showing us their business models. However, we didn't get to meet any
computer science students as they have not formed any groups yet.
For the contextual research, Mr. Mike created a MIRO board for every group,
and we only have to dump in our findings and ideas in the space provided.
Figure 1.2 Contextual Research
I first started with the definition of street art, followed by the arguments and benefits of street art now. Besides, I also looked into the issues facing them now. After that, I also research on the street artists, and to differentiate with other group mates' research, I look deeper into the sculptures as my contextual research.
The major finding is the Penang steel rod sculpture creator, SculptureAtWork. I would say I won't think that sculpture is a street art until I did this research. Hence, this is not the first thing that came into my mind even if I know the existence of the wire sculptures in Penang.
Besides, I also did an analysis on the competitor app.
Figure 1.3 MASA - Murals and Street Art Analysis
Week 2 - Supporting Data
After the contextual research, we continued to chat with the artists (not only street artists) to collect supporting data for our user persona.
Figure 2.1 List of People to Contact
I was responsible to contact Kenji Chai, Jun Ong, and Book of Lai.
Nonetheless, only Book of Lai replied me.
Figure 2.2 Contextual Research Chat
Book of Lai said that the idea of creating this app is similar to a few other existing apps. As a result, he advised against doing this as a business, but it is acceptable for a school project.
Besides, Lavender and I also went to talk to Mr. Choy, who is the lecturer at Taylor's as well as an artist. His sharing is cool and friendly, and from his point of view, art always comes before business. He also wants people who know his art to support it.
Week 3 - User Persona
This week, we worked on the user persona. Our group began with four
user personas: street artist, enthusiast, tourist, and community. We
also have a lot of discussion and debate between the four user
personas because some of them are similar.
Figure 3.0 Draft user Persona #1
At the same time, we also prepared on the interviews and survey
questions. Later on, we further narrow down the user persona as we
think that it would be sufficient to focus on these 3 personas
only.
Figure 3.1 Draft user Persona #2
Figure 3.2 Final User Persona
After that, we are required to list out the number and name of
artist, enthusiast and community.
Figure 3.3 List of number and name (artist, enthusiast and community)
Week 4, 5 - Interview & Survey
This week, we started to send out survey questionnaires and
interview our user personas. After that we also did analysis on
the answers we got from interview and survey.
Figure 4.0 Survey
Figure 4.1 Email Interview
Figure 4.2 Analysis
Besides, we also went on a site visit and got a chance to interview the people from Sculpture at Work. This is the company that created the wire sculpture that we are all familiar with if you have been to Georgetown, Penang.
Figure 4.3 Group pic @ sculpture at work
Talking with the sisters who work at the sculpture studio was both educational and entertaining. They are kind and friendly, and they also shared a lot about the sculpture scene in Malaysia. I was in-charged on noting now the important points during the interview session. Later on, I also did the analysis on the answers we got from this visit and interview.
Figure 4.4 Interview minutes, answer and analysis @ sculpture at
work
Figure 4.5 Curator Interview
The session was interesting, as she shared a lot of her point of
view as an art curator and also shared a lot of useful website links
for us to further research on. Most of the links helped us work on
the taxonomy for ARTTREK.
Besides, we also talked to many different artists and did a list of
analysis on it.
Figure 4.6 Analysis
Week 6 - Insight Discovery, Problem Statement and How Might We(s)
We continue to work on the insight discovery based on all the data
collected.
Figure 6.0 My insight discovery
After that, we combined all tour view into 3 main categories and
key themes.
Figure 6.1 Final insight discovery
Figure 6.2 Final problem statements
Figure 6.2 Final HMW statements
Week 7 - Ideation
After finalising all the statements, we were split into two
groups: the graphic design team (GD) and the UX/UI team. GD people
work on the art direction and branding more, while uiux team
focused on the app features.
Figure 7.0 Our brainstorming session
From all the data collected, we, the UI/UX team listed down all
the needed potential features that could be included in our
app.
.JPG)
Figure 7.1 Brainstorm features
After that, we working on finding visual reference as we have to
communicate this to our IT team. Hence, reference would assist us
in presenting our idea.
Figure 7.2 List of features with references
After the debate between 2 teams, the final include all the
features expect sharing session and face expression reaction.
Later on, we worked on the user flow and Lavender did a simple
prototype with the references to showcase the user flow.
Figure 7.3 User Flow Map
Figure 7.4 Visualise Prototype
Week 7 - Presentation Preparation
For presentation, I was being assigned to present the primary data we collected from both survey and interview.
Week 8 - Presentation
Before the actual presentation, we also run through a few rehearsal to ensure the actual presentation will went smooth.
Figure 7.5 Final ARTTREK (PROPOSAL)
Week 9 - Design Development
After the approval of proposal, we began with the design
development. The first thing to complete in this stage is the User
Journey Map. We are required to list down all the user activities, user thoughts, user needs and pains, touch
points as well as opportunities.
Figure 9.0 User Journey Map
After this, UI/UX team started with the wireframe design. We separated the features into 2 phases as this would allow us to focus on designing all the main features first. I was in a position to create the app's profile page, map pages, onboarding pages, and shop.
Figure 9.1 Seperation
Figure 9.2 Wireframe (phase 1)
Figure 9.3 Wireframe (phase 2)
Figure 9.4 Progress
Figure 9.5 Interactive Wireframe Prototype
Week 10 - User Testing
After finishing the interactive wireframe, we conducted some user testing to gather feedback from our user personas and improve on it before moving on to the final design.
User test tasks
1. Homepage:
- Explore the homepage, find an artwork from all the category
- view the details of the artwork
- view the artist profile of the artwork
2. Community:
- View a post of others
- post a post
3. Map:
- Open the AR navigation for the nearby artwork
Figure 7.1 User Test Recording
Following that, we amended the design based on the user feedback given by the users. We also did a few more rounds of user testing after the amendment.
Figure 7.2 User Test Summary
Week 11 - 14 - App Design
Finally, we moved on to the app design. We first went through a trial-and error process to find the art direction that could be implemented in app design following the branding's art direction provided by the GD team. After that, we created a mood board based on the GD team's mood board.
Figure 11.0 UI/UX moodboard
Following that, we design all the pages based on the mood board.
Figure 11.1 Progress (artist profile)
Figure 11.2 Progress (Map, Geotag)
Figure 11.3 Progress (Shop)
Following that, we realised that our app design direction was not in aligned with the GD team. As a result, we went through another round of trial and error to find a way to implement the irregular shape elements in the app while maintaining the app's clarity.
Figure 12.0 Progress (Homepage)
Figure 12.1 Progress (Homepage)
Figure 12.2 Revised design
Besides, I also illustrated some elements for the onboarding pages.
Figure 12.3 Onboarding pages illustration
Figure 12.4 Onboarding pages
Figure 12.5 Map / geotag pages
Figure 12.6 artist profile
Figure 12.7 photo posting
Figure 12.8 Shop
After that, I also recorded a few video walkthrough for GD team to insert in their social media posts.
Figure 13.0 video walkthrough (discover)
Figure 13.1 video walkthrough (geo-tagging)
Figure 13.2 video walkthrough (connect)
Figure 13.3 video walkthrough (curation)
Figure 13.4 video walkthrough (learn)
Figure 13.5 video walkthrough (record)
Figure 14.0 Final App Prototype
Final App Design File here
Week 15 - Final Presentation
Figure 15.0 ARTTREK (FINAL PROPOSAL)
Figure 15.1 Final ARTTREK Project Document
FEEDBACK
View in Project Document
REFLECTION
Week 1
This week, Mr. Mike gave us a detailed briefing about this module and the projects available for us to choose from. Out of all the topics given, the first topic, which is street art, is the most interesting for me. After the group selection, we immediately started on contextual research. Besides, we also met business school students online this week, and they presented to us their initial business model ideas. This is where confusion comes in because it started with the design stages already. Lavender and I then asked Mr. Mike about the timeline, and we cleared out all of the questions about what we needed to do now. I then proceed with contextual research. I began by researching the definition of street art as well as some of the arguments and benefits of street art. Following that, I found out some issues faced by art street and some famous street artists, which I found interesting to be included. Later on, I realised that most of us were researching mostly similar points. With that, I decided to look deeper into sculptures, which are also one type of street art. After this, I also did an analysis of the competitor (MASA) app. Lastly, I also find that augmented reality is an interesting feature to be included in the app. Hence, I included it in my contextual research.
Week 2
We came back with contextual research this week. We started to create user personas, but we are lacking supporting data while forming the user personas. Hence, we decided to chat with the community and reach them through social media. This week, we also met the business school and computer science students. Communication is super hard. In between, we had a few small arguments due to misunderstandings. Luckily, we managed to solve it after talking to each other. To continue with our work, our group has been split into 2 groups. One group of people moves on to frame interview questions, while another group of people continues to work on user personas by analysing supporting data collected. I am in charge of the user persona. Hence, I gathered all the chats and started analysing them before revising the user personas, which include street artist/artist, enthusiast, as well as community.
Week 3
This week, we started to work on interview questions as well as survey questions. As interview questions were finished drafted by my group mates in the previous week. I started to work on the survey questions together with Janice and Dorcas helped us to refine before sending to Mr. Mike for the last check. While waiting for Mr. Mike to reply, we started to identify the list of street artists and enthusiasts to send out the email interview. After Mr. Mike came back to us for the final questionnaire, and we started to send it to the community. All of us have to find 10 people to answer. Besides, lavender contacted Sculptureatwork, because they are the one who created the wire sculptures at Penang and they came back to us with an invitation to visit their office. We scheduled the meet up on Tuesday afternoon because we do not have class on Tuesday, which could be more flexible for us. Before visiting them, we also prepared a list of interview questions so that we could interview them to get to know more about their thoughts. For this week, we also had an online meeting with other schools. As computer science students keep rushing us for designs, we stated to them in the meeting that we only could provide them on week 10 onwards because we are still in the empathy stage.This meeting was really beneficial since we clarified all of the questions and confirmed that each school understood their roles in this project. We also had a progress update to them to make sure that everyone would be on the same track.
This week, we started to work on interview questions as well as survey questions. As interview questions were finished drafted by my group mates in the previous week. I started to work on the survey questions together with Janice and Dorcas helped us to refine before sending to Mr. Mike for the last check. While waiting for Mr. Mike to reply, we started to identify the list of street artists and enthusiasts to send out the email interview. After Mr. Mike came back to us for the final questionnaire, and we started to send it to the community. All of us have to find 10 people to answer. Besides, lavender contacted Sculptureatwork, because they are the one who created the wire sculptures at Penang and they came back to us with an invitation to visit their office. We scheduled the meet up on Tuesday afternoon because we do not have class on Tuesday, which could be more flexible for us. Before visiting them, we also prepared a list of interview questions so that we could interview them to get to know more about their thoughts. For this week, we also had an online meeting with other schools. As computer science students keep rushing us for designs, we stated to them in the meeting that we only could provide them on week 10 onwards because we are still in the empathy stage.This meeting was really beneficial since we clarified all of the questions and confirmed that each school understood their roles in this project. We also had a progress update to them to make sure that everyone would be on the same track.
Week 4
We went to visit the sculptureatwork office this Tuesday. It was a very informative session with them. They shared a lot with us about their knowledge of sculpture production. After the visit, we analysed the answers from their sharing session. I was incharge of noting down the important points during the interview session. Hence, I also did the analysis of the answer from the sculptureatwork. Besides that, we are analysing the responses from the email interview as well as the questionnaire. For this, we are also separated into 2 groups. One of the groups analyses the responses from the email interview, while the other group analyses the responses from the questionnaire. I was responsible for analysing the questionnaire and I was surprised that most of the people were interested in this app idea.
Week 5
The progress continues by refining the problem statements, insights, and how we might improve them, as they are still not accurate and the supporting data are not sufficient yet. Besides, we also met Mr. Damien this week, and we were told that the app should not only focus on street art but on any type of art form. With that, we tried to search for different types of artists again and send out the interview invitation to them. I attempted to contact Malaysian artists Cgua and Tan Zi Hao. None of them replied to me on time, but our group managed to get responses from a tattoo artist, a photographer, and an abstract artist. Besides, we also managed to talk to an art curator, and from that, we learned about the process of curation, how they could categorise the artworks, as well as some of her experience in curating the artworks. This talk/interview was insightful to me as I got a better understanding of the job scope of an art curator and her concerns in the curation process.
Week 6
After we gathered and analysed all the data from the survey questionnaire and interview, Mr. Mike said that we are still lacking data to line up our insights for artists. With that, Mr. Mike contacted Mr. Ivan, a contemporary artist, so that we could have a short phone interview with him to clear up our doubts from the previous interviews with curators and design studios. In this interview, we have a better view of what the artist is demanding and understand that curation would be a good starting point, but only if there was a balanced relationship between the artist and curator. This is because the wrong curator may not help the artist solve their problem. After this interview, we all had a clearer idea of ARTTREK’s direction, and with that, we also further refined our problem statement and how might we. Later on, we split into the graphic design team and the UI/UX team to work on different aspects. The GD team will look into the branding, while the UI/UX team will start on the list of features for the ARTTREK app. We listed the potential features based on the data we collected previously; at the same time, we were also told that we had to find references from existing apps to support the proposed feature. This process took quite a while, as there are many possible features that could be included in the app.
Week 7
We worked on finalising the features of our app. We met with the IT team to discuss the features and confirm the directions of both teams. After a few meetings, two teams were of the same mind on the final features offered in the ARTTREK app. In addition, we began to construct our proposal presentation slides. We were assigned sections to work on, and I am in charge of the primary data collected through survey questionnaires and interviews. I was grateful that my teammates were understanding of my last-minute work because I was so preoccupied with my club's event this week. After the feedback from Mr. Mike, we were told to refine our presentation slides as they are too wordy and lack visual elements. Hence, we all continue to refine the slides for the following days of this week.
Week 8
After a few days of refining our slides, we were able to finalise them. Following that, we prepared the script and ran a few rehearsals for this upcoming presentation to ensure that everything went smoothly. Mr. Damien was satisfied with our proposal after the presentation, which is great news for our group because we have been working on it for 8 weeks. Mr. Damien suggested that we implement NFT in a future phase. Furthermore, Mr. Damien emphasised that we could continue working on this project even after this module ended, and some of our teammates, including myself, are interested in doing so. As for the NFT part, we also took a look at it and discussed it in our group. However, we left this part behind as we would need to move on to the production stage of this project for the initial stage following the approved proposal.
Week 9
We started to work on the user journey map, which is more complicated than what I did previously for other modules. This requires a much more detailed and organised user journey map. The first thing we did was too simple and not detailed enough. Mr. Mike questioned us extensively, and we had not given it much thought. So after the consultation, we refined the user journey map. Our leader also began working on the Gantt Chart, and I assisted Dorcas with the UI/UX planning. Furthermore, we began production this week, with the UI/UX team beginning with the app's wireframe design.
Week 10
We finished the first draught wireframes for the app's main feature pages this week. And after our consultation with Mr. Mike, we were told to be careful with the repeating interactive, as it could result in a bad user experience. Mr. Mike informed us that we needed to conduct user testing with our wireframe and record the users' feedback on the app. Later, we met with the IT team again to clarify the functionalities and how features could be implemented in the app. Following that, we then continued to work on the other features’ wireframe design.
We finished the first draught wireframes for the app's main feature pages this week. And after our consultation with Mr. Mike, we were told to be careful with the repeating interactive, as it could result in a bad user experience. Mr. Mike informed us that we needed to conduct user testing with our wireframe and record the users' feedback on the app. Later, we met with the IT team again to clarify the functionalities and how features could be implemented in the app. Following that, we then continued to work on the other features’ wireframe design.
Week 11
This week, we finished the app wireframe and added interactivity to it. We had planned to consult Mr. Mike and have him as the first user tester for our app, but Mr. Mike advised us to find other people in class and get their feedback. As a result, we conducted user testing in class with our classmates. The feedback was likely positive, but there were some problems spotted, such as a lack of negative space, the placement of icons, and the lack of information displayed. Following the user test’s feedback, we revised the design and conducted additional user testing to confirm that the revised design could solve the previously identified problem.
Week 12
This week, we started to implement the visual into the app design and turn the wireframe design into an actual design. We began by having a few trial-and-error processes to decide on our art direction for the UI/UX part. This is because we are not familiar with the dark UI design, as well as to give us a chance to try out the different alignment and arrangement of colours and visual elements. After we finalised our art direction, we worked faster as we already had the reference and moodboard. After this week’s consultation, Mr. Mike pointed out the problem that all the visuals we chose could not present the Asian style, but Arttrek, which we proposed previously, will be focusing on Asia. As a result, we were advised to replace some of the visuals with Asian faces, but we also decided that we would not change much about the artwork because art is not limited to specific styles.
Week 13
We revised our app design based on previous feedback as well as continued working to complete the whole app this week. As our progress was a bit behind schedule, Dorcas decided to have the GD team design the microsite instead of the UI/UX team. Hence, the UI/UX team continues to focus on completing all the main feature pages in app design. We managed to complete all the main feature pages before this week’s class, but next, we faced a big challenge as the app design is not aligned with ARTTREK’s branding. Although we used the graphic elements provided by the GD team, they are not strong enough to represent ARTTREK. Besides, our app design was not consistent with the microsite design either. This was a very tough process for us to find the balance between both teams' directions. After much experimenting with incorporating irregular shapes into the app, we realised that the larger portion of the irregular shape could be worked into the app's design without sacrificing the app's clarity. We would like to thank the GD team for their help on this part.
Week 14
The UI/UX team was back on track this week. We contacted the IT team again to double-check and ensure that all of the features would work and that the method of implementation was correct. Luckily, there is nothing much to change, as the IT team said that it is all good for now, but they will only test it out in their Capstone 2. Nonetheless, for the map part, Mr. Mike said that we have to use the correct visual to present in the app prototype as the IT team will be implementing Google Maps into our app. Hence, we have to change the visual to Google Maps. We managed to complete the whole app and record the video walkthrough for the GD team for social media post design. This time, we were also informed that we would need to combine with the EAP team to present the final presentation. Following that, we began drafting the app walkthrough presentation flow after finishing the app design as well as drafting the final presentation slides.
Week 15
Finally, this is gonna end soon. We were finalising our slides for the final presentation this week as well as fixing some small issues identified on the prototype. I would like to thank all my groupmates, especially my group leader, for the past 15 weeks. I would say that this is a very good teamwork experience. This module is also very challenging, as we have to work with the EAP and IT teams. Communication is greatly needed throughout the 15 weeks. This module taught me the importance of good team planning, as each of us should play a specific role in order for the group project to be successful. Furthermore, I observed that design is not only concerned with visual elements, but also with understanding market needs, and that the extensive research from week 1 to week 7 was a difficult but informative process. Lastly, I am extremely grateful to be able to work in this group, and I apologise for doing last-minute work for some internal deadlines.
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