PROBLEM
Emerging artists face challenges gaining visibility, selling their work, and build industry connections in an oversatuated art market.
SOLUTION
A location-based digital art marketplace that maximizes artwork values and fosters authentic connections between artists and buyers within local communities.
RESEARCH
Understanding How Artists Sell, How Buyers Buy
How can we help emerging artists turn their passion into a sustainable livelihood in a world that often sidelines their creativity? To find answers, we explored the art sales ecosystem, diving into artists' motivations and struggles, buyers' decision-making processes, and the role of existing platforms.
Background Research
To understand art buyers as a secondary target audience, focusing on their purchasing behaviors and decision-making factors.
Competitor Audit
To identify unique unique differentiators, gaps and opportunities in platforms where artists showcase and sell their work.
Semi-Structured Interviews
To uncover their motivations, needs, and challenges in creating, promoting, and selling their art.
By synthesizing user insights, we uncovered overarching themes that reveal both the obstacles artists and buyers face and what they strive for.
From Passion to Profit: Artists’ Challenges and Aspirations
Hard to Be Seen, Harder to Be Remembered
Emerging artists struggle to gain exposure in an oversaturated market where visibility is often dictated by algorithms, gallery gatekeeping, or costly promotions. Without an established reputation, their work gets buried under well-known names or mass-produced alternatives.
Goal of Financial Stability
Artists’ are driven by the prospect of turning their passion into sustainable income.
Devaluation of Art
Artists perceive their work as undervalued due to an oversaturated market driving prices down and a lack of audience awareness of the effort behind a finished piece.
Desire for Deeper Connections
Building long-term relationships with buyers is a priority for many artists, as they value more personalized, meaningful interactions over transactional ones.
Overwhelming Self-Promotion
Artists feel mentally drained from the constant effort required to navigate self-promotion on competitive platforms, which often distracts from their creative process.
Selling Finished Pieces Over Commissions
Artists prefer their completed works to be valued and purchased, rather than focusing on commissioned pieces.
Uncertainty in Pricing
Artists struggle with pricing their work appropriately, often lowering prices to appeal to buyers at the expense of their work’s true value.
From Interest to Purchase: Buyer Concerns and Behaviors
Seeking Affordable Alternatives
High costs of gallery pieces push buyers to seek more accessible options.
Trust Through Transparency
Buyers rely on thorough research and detailed information to make confident decisions.
Concerns About Visual Discrepancies
Buyers worry that photos don’t always capture an artwork’s actual colors and texture, creating hesitation when shopping online.
Difficulty Visualizing the Fit
Buyers have difficulty visualizing how an artwork fits their space, making it harder to commit to a purchase.
Why Existing Solutions Aren’t Enough?
From our interviews, we learned that artists juggle both online and offline channels to sell their work, trying to make up for what each one lacks. To understand these gaps, we analyzed both digital marketplaces and traditional spaces to uncover where existing options fall short, and where a better solution could fit.
DEFINE
Understanding How Artitists & Buyers Engage in Arts Sales Journey
Meet Sarah and Erin! Sarah is a traditional artist striving to make a living from her work, but standing out is tough in a crowded market. Without recognition, pricing feels uncertain, sales remain inconsistent, and connecting with loyal buyers takes more than just talent. Erin is a designer who loves collecting unique art but struggles to find pieces that fit her budget and style. We created these personas to journey maps to step into their worlds—understanding their frustrations, needs, and what it truly takes to bring artists and buyers together in a way that works for both.
Artists' Journey: The Rollercoaster of Selling Art
Buyers' Journey: Quest for the Perfect Piece
One Sale Is Nice. Designing for the Next One Is Better.
By mapping artists' experiences and pain points, we identified two key goals: helping them earn money and build connections.
Earn Money
Emerging artists struggle to gain visibility, price their work fairly, and secure sales. Even when they do sell, high platform fees eat into their earnings, while upfront costs for materials and marketing make it even harder to break even. A solution must help artists get discovered, price confidently, and secure fair sales opportunities to make art a sustainable career.
Build Connections
Artists don’t just need buyers—they need lasting relationships that support their growth. However, most platforms focus solely on transactions, leaving artists with little opportunity to engage beyond the purchase. Without meaningful interaction, artists have limited avenues to build a loyal audience and gain feedback. A solution must facilitate ongoing artist-buyer interactions, reinforcing trust and long-term engagement.
HOW MIGHT WE
How might we help emerging artists gain visibility, generate sales, and build an audience so that they can turn their passion into a sustainable income and achieve recognition for their work?
IDEATION
We prioritized solutions that empower artists to earn more & build stronger connections with buyers.
We brainstormed a broad range of ideas and mapped them based on how well they align with artists' key needs: earning more and building stronger connections. This helped us identify solutions that directly address the most pressing challenges.
OUR IDEA
A location-based digital art marketplace that maximizes artwork values and fosters authentic connections between artists and buyers within local communities.
Why go digital? The way people buy art is changing. More buyers now explore and purchase pieces through online platforms, making digital spaces the new storefront for artists. Why mobile-first? Art discovery isn’t happening behind a desk—it’s happening on the go. Buyers scroll, browse, and make decisions from their phones, whether they’re commuting or relaxing at home. A mobile platform keeps artists’ work within reach, sparking more spontaneous interactions and purchases.
PROTOTYPE & TESTING
We Prototyped the Buyer’s Flow & Put It to Usability Testing.
An artist’s success hinges on buyers—without sales, their work holds value, but not income. That’s why we prioritized prototyping the buyer’s flow under time constraints. Using the flowchart and wireframe, we tested how buyers explore artworks, connect with artists, book in-person viewings, and place bids, ensuring a seamless journey that maximizes engagement and drives sales.
ITERATION
5 Major Improvements
Testing our prototype with real users revealed friction points in the buyer’s journey—small hurdles that could mean the difference between interest and action. To address them, we focused on five key improvements to refine the experience.
Relocating the Appointment Button
Initially, the "Appointment" button was placed under the Auction tab, assuming buyers would want to view the artwork before purchasing. However, usability testing revealed that 75% participants couldn't find it, instead navigating to the Artist tab and clicking "Message", expecting to contact the artist before scheduling an appointment.
To align with user behavior, the "Appointment" button was moved to the Artist tab next to "Message", making it easier to find and initiate an appointment request where users naturally expect it.
Restructuring Bid Info Hierarchy
Initially, the current bid and starting bid were displayed with similar emphasis, with the starting bid positioned first and prominently, to ensure users understood the price breakdown before bidding. However, usability testing revealed that users cared more about the current bid price than the starting bid breakdown.
To improve clarity, the current bid was prioritized with larger, bolder text and placed first, while the starting bid breakdown was de-emphasized and moved to a collapsible section, improving visual hierarchy.
Highlighting the Entered Bid Amount
Initially, the entered bid amount was integrated within the overall transaction summary in the lower right corner of the conformation page to keep all payment details in one place. However, usability testing revealed that the small font size and peripheral placement made it less noticeable. Many participants took longer to locate their entered bid, leading to hesitation before finalizing their bid.
To reduce user cognitive load and error, we made the entered bid the focal point, displaying it prominently in a larger, high-contrast format at the top. Supplementary details, while still accessible, were given a lower visual priority. This ensures buyers can quickly verify their bid at a glance, increasing purchase confidence in the final step.
Enlarging the Bid CTA Button
Initially, the "Place a Bid" button was designed as a smaller button positioned near the bid input field to keep bidding controls close together. However, usability testing revealed that users frequently overlooked, misclicked, or missed taps on the button.
To reduce user errors and improve accessibility, the "Place a Bid" button was increased in size, given more spacing, and redesigned in a high-contrast yellow color, ensuring users can quickly recognize and interact with the bidding function with confidence.
Reworking the Bid History Format
Initially, a line graph was used to display how an artwork’s value changed over time, aiming to help buyers track bidding trends and identify demand patterns. However, usability testing revealed that the line graph lack meaningful insights: since auction prices inherently increase with each bid, the upward trend was inevitable rather than informative.
To improve clarity, the bid history was redesigned into a list of latest bids with user avatars and amounts, making it easier for buyers to see who bid, when, and how much, without needing to interpret a trend line.
OUR SOLUTION
Artistry, a location-based digital art marketplace that maximizes artwork values and fosters authentic connections between artists and buyers within local communities.
Find artworks by location and connect with nearby artists
Location-based discovery helps artists gain visibility by reaching nearby buyers instead of competing on overcrowded global platforms. This local focus humanizes the buying experience by creating genuine real-world connections that online marketplaces typically can’t replicate, fostering trust, deeper appreciation, and long-term relationships between artists and buyers.
Book in-person artwork viewings
By seeing artworks in context, buyers can experience each piece's details, texture, and scale - qualities that photos often fail to capture and confidently assess their fit, while artists can share the story and craftsmanship behind their work, creating a more informed and personal purchasing experience.
Auction-based, market driven pricing
By seeing artworks in context, buyers can experience each piece's details, texture, and scale - qualities that photos often fail to capture and confidently assess their fit, while artists can share the story and craftsmanship behind their work, creating a more informed and personal purchasing experience.
Process Videos for Deeper Context
Artists can upload behind-the-scenes footage that highlight key techniques and the intricate details that make each piece unique, offering buyers a richer appreciation of the creative journey. Seeing the creative process firsthand reinforces the value of the piece, helping buyers understand the dedication and expertise involved.
FUTURE EXPLORATION
Looking Ahead: Expanding the Experience
As we refined the core user journey, we also uncovered exciting opportunities to enhance engagement beyond the current scope. Two key areas for future exploration stand out:
Arguemented Reality for Artwork Previews
Buying art online comes with a leap of faith: will it fit the space, match the décor, or feel right in person? An AR preview feature would allow buyers to virtually place an artwork on their walls, providing a true-to-scale visualization that adapts to different lighting conditions and viewing angles. This creates an immersive shopping experience that boosts purchase confidence.
Social Media for Artists
Art buyers don’t just purchase a product—they invest in a story, a creative vision, and an artist they resonate with. A built-in social space would allow artists to share publicly their inspirations, work-in-progress updates, insights into their techniques, and event announcements. By making the artistic journey more visible, buyers can experience the emotion and dedication behind each piece, Fostering a deeper, more intimate connection.
