Enhancing Gallery Visitor Engagement

Using a human-centered design approach to improving visitor’s engagement and comprehension at the TASWIRA gallery in Seattle. Our team ultimately built and established two permanent installations at the gallery.

 

TASWIRA means…

“vision” in Swahili and, with respect to the gallery, stands for Transformative Action for Sustainable Women’s Initiative and Resources in Africa. TASWIRA is the only art gallery in Seattle dedicated exclusively to showcasing African art, cultures, and traditions. The gallery also serves as a retail space, selling African-inspired streetwear, and a community event space.

In 2019, following her first experience volunteering at the Bamburi Women’s Empowerment Center (BWEC) in Kenya, Avery Barnes founded the organization as a way to support the female artists at the BWEC who handcraft TASWIRA’s unique line of African-inspired streetwear, accessories, and home goods. TASWIRA donates 20% of its sales back to the BWEC to support the artisans. Additionally, through partnerships and collaborations with local BIPOC artists and minority-owned businesses, TASWIRA hosts a variety of public events—including Small Business Markets, Artist Exhibitions, Networking Nights, and more—all aimed at catalyzing the community, capital, and culture for underrepresented creatives in Seattle.

As a new and multifaceted business trying to find its’ footing, TASWIRA founder Avery reached out to our team at UW HCDE to find out how she might increase engagement for gallery visitors.

 
 

Context
For my final capstone project during my master’s program (HCDE 592 & 593), my team worked with TASWIRA, the only African art & design gallery in Seattle. We were tasked with leveraging human-centered design to determine how we might encourage interactive engagement within the gallery and communicate TASWIRA’s mission & vision effectively.

My Contribution
As UX Researcher I planned, designed, and conducted foundational research, generative research, concept, and evaluative tests throughout the course of our project. This included planning logistics/timing, developing screeners, writing discussion guides, and moderating in-person and remote interviews. I led the recruitment - screening and scheduling - for each of the rounds of research using Qualtrics. I also led synthesis for each of the rounds of research using DoveTail and Figma, and wrote and presented research findings for our deliverables.

As project manager, I planned our process using a work-back method based on when our final gallery installation would need to be completed. This planning included timelines, tasks, deliverables, prioritization, and delegation across research and design processes. This was done using Monday.com, which our team utilized to maintain status of current tasks, link relevant information, review at the end of the end of each meeting.

Role UX Researcher; Project Manager
Duration January - June 2023
Team Jessica Douma (Designer), Tabby Safari (Designer), Sierra Jenkins (Researcher), Avery Barnes (TASWIRA Founder)
Tools Monday.com, Qualtrics, DoveTail, Calendly, Otter.AI
Tags Foundational Research; Generative Research; Concept Testing; Evaluative Testing; Prototyping; Gallery


Outcome
Ultimately, our team designed, fabricated, and installed two permanent installations in the gallery that tell the story of the founding of TASWIRA, share its’ mission and vision, and introduces some of the artisans who have close relationships to the gallery. We were also able to provide TASWIRA with recommendations for improving the visitor experience in areas beyond the scope of our project.

With our installation we have seen increased visitor engagement and have provided TASWIRA’s founder with a storytelling aid she is able to share with others.

Awards
In June 2023, out of 51 teams, our project received the HCDE Impact Award which recognizes teams that "go above and beyond with respect to equity, justice, the environment, or changing lives".

 

Images of TASWIRA before our installation. From left to right: TASWIRA main entrance; Avery Barnes (founder) stocking shelves of accessories; Wide angle view of the gallery interior.

 

Impact

Our team ultimately put two permanent installations in the gallery. Through our research, we found that these installations:

  • welcomed visitors to spend more time in the gallery

  • helped visitors to better understand the founding story, the mission, and the vision of TASWIRA

  • promoted sales by establishing connections to the artisans who’s work fills the TASWIRA gallery

  • encouraged deeper engagement with the art, artifacts, and the founder of TASWIRA

 

Images of TASWIRA after the installation of our designs. From left to right: TASWIRA mission cube located in the main entrance, to give visitors an overview of TASWIRA’s vision and goals; Stories of TASWIRA Turning Panels, which tell visitors the story of TASWIRA’s contributors and how the gallery was established; Close-up view of our instructional panel, where the turning interaction is the crux of the visitor’s experience with these installations.

Research & Design Process

  • Our team identified needs and pain points within the gallery as well as constraints that would affect our work, which ultimately allowed us to scope down our project focus.

  • Uncovering gallery visitor’s needs within the scope our team identified.

  • Brainstorming ideas and putting them in front of visitors to validate design direction.

  • Developing low-fidelity prototypes of our installation and using them for evaluative testing.

  • Designing and building the various parts in order to be installed in the gallery.

Foundational Research

Duration: 3 weeks

Methods: Stakeholder Interviews; Observation; Behavioral Mapping; Survey

Outcome: Our team identified needs and pain points within the gallery as well as constraints that would affect our work, which ultimately allowed us to scope down our project focus.

My Contribution: Conducted stakeholder interviews; Developed & administered Qualtrics surveys

(Above) Our team’s first visit to TASWIRA.

In order to gain a better understanding of TASWIRA and understand where our efforts would be most valuable our team came up with a series of research questions. To answer these, we used various methods to get a fuller picture of TASWIRA’s goals and the current experience that visitors were having.

We held unstructured stakeholder interviews with TASWIRA’s founder to understand more about the business. We wanted to hear about things like TASWIRA’s mission and vision, how the business operates, what parts of the business were most important to her, and more about her target audience.

Once we understood TASWIRA’s goals, we wanted to understand how visitors experienced the space and what features they were most drawn to. We did this by general observation of customers in the space and conducting behavioral mapping at the gallery during events and during standard business hours.

When visitor’s were leaving TASWIRA, we invited them fill out an experience survey. This survey answered our most straightforward questions related to visitors’ expectations and perceptions of the space. We wanted to gain a sense of the primary occasions during which people visited TASWIRA, what things people struggled to understand about TASWIRA, and how visitors were deciding whether or not to make purchase. 

(Above) Visitors mingling during a BIPOC Business Reception hosted at TASWIRA
(Above) Setting up to administer surveys during Seattle’s Art Walk.

It was clear to our team early on that we needed to scope our project focus. Through our foundational research, we identified 7 opportunity areas including (but not limited to): visitor’s not understanding TASWIRA’s mission, mismatch in visitor’s mental model of a gallery and the experience they’re receiving, and moral quandary around the artifacts in the space. Additionally, the burden of sharing TASWIRA’s story often fell on the owner, and anyone visitors who didn’t speak to her directly would miss this vital information.

How might we use storytelling to share the mission and vision of TASWIRA with prospective gallery visitors?

We chose to focus on improving storytelling because it would have a direct impact on all of the other problem areas we identified and gave us more control against the challenges we had begun to encounter during our initial research.

Generative Research

Duration: 3 weeks

Methods: Emoji-Object Association; Storytelling Investigation

Outcome: The generative research phase uncovered directional insights that told us exactly what things about the visitor’s experience and grasp of TASWIRA’s story needed to be addressed. These insights were used to define the design principles that guided ideation and prototyping.

My Contribution: developing research plan & participant screener, moderating storytelling investigation, thematic analysis

After narrowing down the scope of project, we had to identify the needs that visitor’s had when they came to the gallery with respect to understanding TASTWIRA’s mission and vision. To uncover these needs and anything that might be getting in the way of visitors having an immersive experience, we conducted research using creative methods meant to slowly reveal more details to visitors and gauge their change in perception as these details were exposed.

Because TASWIRA is a gallery and open to anyone, it has no particular target audience. We recruited 6 participants who had never visited the TASWIRA gallery. We wanted to get initial impressions from people who’d never interfaced with Avery or knew the intent behind TASWIRA.

(Above) Me moderating an session with a participant.

Generative Research Process

  • 20 minutes

  • Participants are given emoji sticky notes and told to place them on objects that evoke that emoji for them

  • Used to gauge participants current knowledge and perception of TASWIRA and its’ mission

  • Based on IDEO’s Word-Concept Association

Emoji-Object Association:

(Above) Participant’s emojis next to hats and shirts in the gallery

  • 40 minutes

  • Participants are shown stories that represent key moments and information about TASWIRA

  • Helped us learn how participant’s perception changed as they received more in depth information and what elements of stories were most important to them.

Storytelling Investigation:

(Above) An example story card shown to participants

Ideation & Concept Testing

Duration: 2 weeks

Methods: Crazy 8’s; Round Robin; Concept Testing

Outcome: Alignment on a direction for the final design based on the ideas generated and feedback received during concept testing.

My Contribution: participant screener & recruitment, moderating concept testing, leading affinity-mapping analysis

After uncovering visitor’s needs during our generative research, we needed to develop ideas for designs that could address these needs. To start, each member of our team visited a local museum or gallery to get inspiration for how these places were storytelling. The team then did two rounds of Crazy 8s, where each person created 8 ideas in 8 minutes, giving us 64 ideas total. We consolidated and narrowed down these ideas, then used them in a Round Robin exercise. To do this, each team member gave feedback on an idea then another team member would sketch a new iteration of the idea based on the feedback. This enabled us to align on our top three ideas that did the best job of addressing the user needs we uncovered.

Once we aligned on these ideas, the team created more detailed sketches to better portray the ideas. We then conducted our concept testing on these three design directions. These concepts tests were 30-minute Zoom interviews conducted with 5 participants who were familiar with TASWIRA. This allowed us to gather pros and cons for each concept, discuss what content would be most valuable, and learn how our ideas may work together to create an engaging visitor experience.

(Below) Sketches from Crazy 8s

(Below) Round Robin examples

(Below) The final design ideas our team used to conduct concept testing

Prototyping & Evaluative Test

Duration: 3 weeks

Methods: Low-fidelity prototypes; Usability study

Outcome: Our team identified improvements for the content and content structure of our designs. We also validated that our designs improved visitor’s experience in the gallery.

My Contribution: Participant screening & recruitment; Moderated usability evaluations; Analysis

(Above) Installing our low-fidelity prototype

After receiving feedback from concept testing, we started bringing our ideas to life by developing low-fidelity prototypes. These prototypes allowed us to test the scale, materials, durability, and affordances of our proposed solutions. We built our low-fidelity turning panels prototype using cardboard, printer paper, PVC pipe, and 2x4’ wood beams. The cube prototype was constructed out of an 18x18” cardboard box and printer paper then mounted on a lazy-susan turntable to allow spinning.

Using our low-fidelity prototypes, we conducted 45-minute evaluative research sessions with 6 participants across 2 days. This qualitative research helped us refine the content across both prototypes and ensure that our designs brought additional value to the gallery.

During evaluative tests, participants were first asked what they knew about TASWIRA. We then observed participants as they explored the space on their own, making note of the points along their journey that they encountered the prototypes, how they interacted with them, and for how long they interacted with them. Following their walkthrough, participants were interviewed so that we could better understand how the prototypes impacted their gallery experience, what they thought about the prototypes in general, and what, if anything, they’d learned about TASWIRA through their interactions.

(Above) Low-fidelity prototype of turning panels

(Above) Low-fidelity prototype of the TASWIRA mission cube

This case study is still under construction! Check out this video for a sneak peak of the rest of this work, or feel free to reach out to me at jmbrown864@gmail.com with any questions.