BONAVISTA BIENNALE
MOBILE TRAVEL APP
Your ultimate companion for planning, exploring, and enjoying the Bonavista Art Festival.
Project Overview
About the Bonavista Biennale
The Bonavista Biennale (BB) is an innovative, rural-based, public art event occurring in Fall every two years on Newfoundland’s Bonavista Peninsula. There are a great number of stunning indoor and outdoor artwork sites spread across the 165km Peninsula, including sculptures, photography, and paintings. The Biennale also includes a series of public events, such as workshops, artist talks, and community gatherings to welcome visitors to engage with artists and the local communities.
My Role
User Research
Lead 3 primary research interviews.
Prototype
Explore feature
User Experience Design
Usability Tests
Conducted 3 user testings
The project &Goal
About the project
The organization is committed to offering audiences an immersive way to explore and interact with contemporary art. The goal of the project is to transit from the paper-based visitor guide to a digital, interactive approach while working within a limited budget. This project aims to develop the MVP-1 of a mobile app for fundraising, with the final release planned for 2025 Spring.
Bonavista Biennale App
Explore
Effortlessly preview and explore detailed info about art installations and events.
Pain Point
Exploring the biennale requires the effort of searching all over the internet.
Handouts are only available upon arrival, planning the trip becomes challenging for visitors.
Pain Point
It is challenging to arrange the trip when sorting through scattered notes.
Day Planner
Explore, search, and filter to collect the interests for a smoother planning experience.
Navigation & Audio stories
The navigation will guide visitors to destination regardless of online or offline conditions.
With the audio guide, visitors won't miss any highlights; hear the history and art legends of the places passing by.
Pain Points:
Drivers often find it challenging to fully enjoy the view.
Discovery phase
Problem Space
This was the infographic map the Bonavista Biennale using. However,
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The information was too clustered,
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It was hard to read and confusing
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The information provided was limited
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Lack of artwork images.
HMW 1
Since the visitors were unsatisfied of the handbook
How Might We effectively deliver information to visitors and enhance their enjoyment of the biennale?
Secondary Research
Visitor composition:
Local: 22%
Canadian Out-of Bonavista: 71%
USA: 5%
International: 2%
The internet connections are unstable in the peninsula, and there are areas without coverage.
Most people choose to drive for visits since the art installations and workshops are spread across the 14 communities, 165km Peninsula, and public transit is limited.
Primary Research
To better understand visitors' thoughts of attending the biennial, we conducted 6 semi-structured interviews. The collected data enables me to delve deeper into their behaviors, perceptions, and identify their pain points during the trip.
"I can only obtain the handbook upon arrival in Bonavista, but I prefer to plan my trip ahead of time."
"I'd like to visit as many art installations as possible during my trip because I won't be staying here for long."
"I like European contemporary arts, so I plan to spend more time exploring installations related to that genre."
"I am the driver, making it difficult for me to fully enjoy the view while driving."
Persona
It was interesting to discover that visitors from different areas exhibited distinct goals, thoughts and behaviours. Therefore, they can be grouped into two personas to represent Bonavista local visitors and those from outside of Bonavista.
Journey Map
Based on primary research, it can be observed that there are 4 phases of visiting the biennale. Here is how the personas react in the different stages in As-is scenario and To-be scenario.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Define Phase
Further HMW
After better understanding the target visitors and their specific problems in different phases, we want to prioritize solving these problems in MVP 1.
HWM makes trip planning easier.
HMW guides visitors to their destination even when there is no internet.
HMW provides better experiences on the road.
HMW makes the trip memorable.
Feature Ideation
With the visitors' specific needs, we brainstormed based on features and conducted a feature prioritization vote.
The MVP1 will primarily implement quick wins and the Home-run strategy, focusing on the following main features:
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Exploration
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Trip Plan
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Navigation
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Stam Hunt
Design & Evaluation
Low-fidelity Sketches
Mid-fidelity
Usability Test 1
In user tests, there are 4 semi-structured interviews set up. Participants need to complete a 30-second test and 5 tasks, and System Usability Scale Survey (SUS) which include:
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Understand the explore page.
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Filter and find artworks based on art preferences.
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Navigation with the audio
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Build a collection.
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Manage the collection.
Key Takeaways
There's confusion between the numbers on the map and the numbers preceding each artwork's title.
The exploring page requires excessive scrolling
Misleading labeling
Confusion regarding the context of filters, such as the meaning of 'Date' in the 'Sort' filter.
Confusion about the wording used in the 'Collection' section.
System Usability Scale (SUS) is 75
Style Guide
Hi-Fidelity
Usability Test 2
Key Takeawys
In user tests, there are 2 semi-structured interviews set up.
The filter cannon multiple select.
Confusion when delete the collection
Difficulties when doing this project
Off-line map solution:
Google map VS Build-in map?
We initially considered utilizing Google Maps for its offline map download feature. However, integrating Google's offline map into our app's download package was found unfeasible.
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It would redirect users to Google Maps for downloading the offline map. This process included prompting users to download offline maps when opening the app, redirecting them to Google Maps for the download, and starting navigation upon arrival at the destination.
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For users already in Bonavista, they might face internet disconnection.
After research, we recommend the Build-in map; Mapbox or similar existing map API solutions for the built-in map. It’s cheaper overall than Google’s Map service, with free usage that may have covered basic usage, especially when the daily active users are lower.
Design System:
Build own Design System? or use Material 3?
We opted for Material 3 as our design system due to constraints related to time, budget and consistency.
Success Metrics:
Increased SUS Score:
Gain government grant and secure more sponsors:
Final Solutions
With consideration of the two rounds of user tests, we revised the information architecture to reduce scrolling, enable multiple selections in filters, revised the UX writing of labels to reduce confusion, and made the explore window clearer without numerical distinctions, among other changes. Here is the final solution.
Explore
Effortlessly preview and explore detailed info about art installations and events.
Pain Point
Exploring the biennale requires the effort of searching all over the internet.
Handouts are only available upon arrival, planning the trip becomes challenging for visitors.
Pain Point
It is challenging to arrange the trip when sorting through scattered notes.
Day Planner
Explore, search, and filter to collect the interests for a smoother planning experience.
Navigation & Audio stories
The navigation will guide visitors to destination regardless of online or offline conditions.
With the audio guide, visitors won't miss any highlights; hear the history and art legends of the places passing by.
Pain Points:
Drivers often find it challenging to fully enjoy the view.
Stamp Hunt
The Stamp Hunt is designed to create chances to engage with ambassadors, and motivate visitors to explore more art sites.
Pain Points:
People like Eric want to visit as many art sites as possible; however, sometimes they lose motivation to continue visiting. People like Amanda wish to have more opportunities to communicate with staff.
Reflection & Next steps
Reflection:
It was wonderful to participate in this project. I enjoyed the process of identifying and addressing the pain points. It was great collaborating with this team. I have received an invitation to visit Bonavista Biennale 2025. It would be amazing to use the app, crafted with my design input, to guide my trip.
Next Step:
It would be beneficial to conduct further user research and incorporate additional functions for the visiting and post-visit phase, such as a review function, etc.
Testimonial
