brandywine workshop and archives
Redesigning Artura.org's search experience
A B2C web and mobile application built for art professionals, educators, and enthusiasts to discover new digital artworks
brandywine workshop and archives
A B2C web and mobile application built for art professionals, educators, and enthusiasts to discover new digital artworks
First created by Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Artura.org is the world’s first digital archive of contemporary artworks by diverse artists. We were tasked with a modern redesign of the desktop site and the creation of an accompanying mobile application.
Art professionals, educators, and enthusiasts needed a streamlined platform to easily find, discover, and explore diverse contemporary artwork, reducing friction in identifying artworks of interest.
Artura.org aims to be an accessible and comprehensive resource for lovers of contemporary art.
We created a completely new interface for Artura.org with improved search and personalization features to help users quickly find and engage with diverse artworks.
The new redesign includes account login, advanced search features, and the ability to save artworks to custom lists.
client
Brandywine Workshop and Archives
role
Product Designer
team
Project Lead
Software Engineers (3)
timeframe
8 months
phase one
I began my journey with Artura.org when the Project Lead contracted me and my development team at Levra Labs to execute the full redesign and technical overhaul of Artura.org.
At the start of the project, I conducted some initial research and discovery, seeking to better understand the user's expectations and the competitive landscape.
In order to better understand the art world and our users' mindset, I learned the specific terms and relationships between different art objects through discussions with our client and explorations of the existing Artura.org website, such as:
To gain a better understanding of the project vision, we had a few discussions with our client to better understand how users might use a website like Artura.org to search for artworks of different heritages.
To clarify the project vision, we spoke with the client about how users might search for artworks by heritage. As art professionals and enthusiasts themselves, Brandywine Workshop and Archives team members served as valuable user proxies.
We found that:
👩🎨
Artist
🖼️ Exhibition
🌎 Heritage
🏛️ Collection
🖌️Medium
💬 Subject
🕰️
Time period
We studied similar apps that are known for their excellent search interface and/or user experience.
We asked: What makes their search experience great?
Spotify and Apple Music rely on keyword search and personalized algorithms to deliver relevant results, minimizing the need for advanced search filters.
IMDB provides both keyword and advanced search, allowing users to build detailed queries and create custom lists. Unlike platforms with smarter search algorithms, IMDB relies on advanced search to help users find and filter for more specific content (e.g. "horror movies from the 80's starring Jack Nicholson").
Apple Music keeps its search simple — it only offers keyword search, which returns all relevant results by category.
Spotify also offers keyword search, allowing users to further filter the results by category as needed.
IMDB has both keyword search and advanced search, allowing users to construct more specific search queries.
phase two
problem statement
The user stories were developed based on the client's Request for Proposal.
Due to the complex relationships between artworks, artists, exhibitions, and collections, I found it necessary to create a site architecture diagram to map out how all features and user stories would be included in the final site's information architecture.
After planning out the site architecture, I created mid-fidelity wireframes for all of Artura.org's screens and user flows.
phase three
As one of the key features of Artura.org, the search and filter functionality posed an interesting challenge. We realized that there were a few different reasons why someone might be using the search function on Artura.org.
The user knows exactly what they are looking for — they have a clear idea of a specific artwork, artist, exhibition, or collection they want to find and remember the name of that item.
Keyword search best fits this use case. Like Spotify’s results page, search results are grouped by category (Artworks, Artists, Exhibitions, Collections), helping users quickly find specific items.
The user is just browsing and doesn’t have a specific artwork in mind. They want to discover new artworks or artists, typically within some larger category.
A “Browse Categories” page suited this use case well. Inspired by Spotify and Apple Music’s “Explore” pages, we let users browse artworks and artists by region and heritage.
The user is looking for specific artworks and artists that fit a certain criteria. They may not have a specific artwork in mind, but they would like to look at a smaller subset of art.
An advanced search and filtering page was the best fit for this use case. Inspired by IMDB’s approach, we kept it separate from keyword search to avoid user confusion.
We created many different iterations of the Advanced Search page based on client feedback and design research. Conversations with our client helped us prioritize which categories to use as filters, and we experimented with different layouts for the filter panel.
One key design decision we had to make was whether to use interactive filtering or batch filtering for the advanced search feature.
The system starts by displaying a large list of results to the user, and this list of results is updated dynamically as soon as the user makes a new filter selection.
No results are shown at the start, and the system waits for the user to finish making all filter selections and press “Submit” before displaying results.
Research from the Nielsen-Norman Group finds that users who already have multiple filter criteria in mind benefit the most from batch filtering, and users who do not have a clear search goal benefit the most from interactive filtering. After finding that our users typically already have some criteria in mind when searching, we chose to pursue a batch filtering approach for the Advanced Search page.
We had many discussions with the members of Brandywine Workshop and Archives to determine the relationships between artists, artworks, and heritages. We formed two key conclusions that shaped the design of the Browse page:
A modernized Artura.org website and mobile app with enhanced search, user accounts, and tools for saving personalized collections.
phase four
We will be conducting plenty of testing before Brandywine Workshop and Archives has its official PR launch for Artura.org later in 2025.
Once the site and app are officially launched, we will be actively monitoring product analytics and user behavior to help us determine next steps for the Artura product.
We also had some ideas for additional features to incorporate into a future iteration of Artura but were unable to add them to the current version due to resource constraints, specifically:
Collaborate with developers early in the process
Given the scope of the redesign and large technical overhaul, it was critical for developers to be part of the conversation early on in the product design & planning process. Understanding the data structures and relationships provided helpful design constraints. It also made the developer handoff process much smoother, as the developers were already somewhat familiar with the system and designs.
always prepare a proposal
Given the project’s complexity, we had many in-depth discussions with our team and stakeholders around technical and visual decisions. When working with high-level stakeholders, coming prepared with clear proposals—rather than open-ended questions—helped focus conversations and drive productive outcomes.
start with a mobile-first design approach
In hindsight, I should have prioritized mobile designs earlier in the design process. Starting with mobile always ensures more efficient layouts due to limited screen space. Because this was a desktop-first redesign, I focused on desktop initially, which made adapting to mobile more challenging later.