How can we centralize SRAA's resources and events onto a unified platform, enhancing accessibility, while fostering a sense of connection within the underrepresented Skid Row community through the mediums of art and culture?
Designer
(Team of 4 designers)
Nov 2022 - Sept 2023
User Research
Design Systems
Mobile Interaction Design
Prototyping
Figma
FigJam
The Skid Row Arts Alliance (SRAA) is a consortium of artist-driven organizations in Skid Row, dedicated to creating art, fostering community, and advocating for residents. Around 4,000 Skid Row residents face the threat of gentrification due to their community not being recognized as an entity. SRAA brings individuals together and represents their voices through arts and culture to support place-keeping for all Skid Row residents.
Currently, the various organizations that make up Skid Row Arts Alliance rely on multiple platforms (ie, their individual Facebook pages) to promote their events and host various resources. This leads to an unorganized distribution of information and a potential lack of visibility for the community members we aim to engage.
"How can we centralize SRAA's resources and events onto a unified platform, enhancing accessibility, while fostering a sense of connection within the underrepresented Skid Row community through the mediums of art and culture?"
Our proposed solution was a mobile application that would allow residents of Skid Row to discover events, resources, and communities where they could find an outlet to feel empowered. We wanted our mobile app to include:
To gain inspiration for our designs, we took a look at other various apps sharing similar features to those we planned on implementing. Some of these apps included Yelp, Canvas, Google Arts & Culture, and many others. After separating the features by their respective categories, we took note of the strengths and weaknesses within the apps, highlighting aspects that we liked in particular.
We conducted interviews with three artists in the community and two admins who were directly involved in SRAA’s organization overall. The questions consisted of a general overview of their backgrounds along with an understanding of current work processes and problems they navigated.
Following the interviews, we created an affinity map to synthesize our findings as a group. We sorted insights into different categories to understand the common trends and problems the community faced, allowing us to effectively address these issues head-on.
We then developed 2 user personas for our targeted audience: artists and admins. This allowed us to empathize and gain a better understanding of our audience's needs and challenges.
Before moving on to the early stages of designing the interface itself, we created a basic information architecture to provide a visual framework to outline the structure of the app.
With our initial drafts created, we began creating various mockups to explore iterations of designs for the app. This allowed us to map out the features and try different layouts within the screens. From here, I worked mainly on the Submission Portal and Profile features, occasionally adding input to the Gallery feature.
In order to gain further insight and feedback for our app, we conducted usability tests with an admin and an artist. We gave various tasks for them to follow to test their interactions with the designs. Throughout this process, we took note of their critiques and suggestions, which were valuable as we progressed toward refining our final designs.
Overall, participants found that the app was straightforward and user-friendly. However, certain suggestions for improvement surfaced where improvements in clarity were suggested to enhance the overall user experience throughout the app. A few examples include:
While designing the app, we opted for colors that brought more visibility within the interface, while maintaining pre-existing themes that SRAA had for their own branding.
