How to improve the way we experience art? 1.1
Research Part 1 — Preparation, Secondary data, Benchmark, Survey
I remember when I was young, most of my friends were so good at sports but I got bored and tired fast. When my sister was playing the piano so well, no matter how much time I’ve practiced the music sounded not exactly how it should be. And not to mention my ballet class, I wasn’t into it. And I was talking to the girl next to me all the time, in the end, I was punished with splitting legs in front of the mirror almost every class.
However, I found myself really comfortable in the art field, I was creative and the colors were my best friends.
My family always support me to pursue my dream, but as I always think a bit more than other kids in my age, I know culturally and socially «artists» is not a so-called proper profession.
I stopped drawing after I entered primary school, became a sheep just followed the shepherd man. As time goes on, I forgot how I love this hobby. Until I came to Spain, I was both physically alone and mentally feeling alone, I started tracking this old friend and begged him to come back (exaggerated haha), he became my best friend again nonetheless also my personal therapist too.
Birds of a feather flock together
I met lots of friends that share this interest and frustration with me, the frustration of thinking about not be able to be brave enough to give up everything and go pursuing their artist dream. Most of them have proper fine art study and good skills but being an artist is just their part-time job.
The art field is always a hard sector, before COVID-19, during COVID-19, and maybe after COVID-19. And due to this, I came up with the idea of this project.
Research
COVID-19’s devastating impact on artists
As we know COVID-19 has thrown a big bomb to the world, lots of sectors are affected. Flower industry, restaurants, hotels even luxury brands are facing a new challenge and change.
This impact also brought the artist sector a huge issue. According to wows.org, before this COVID-19 pandemic, lots of artists already face significant financial challenges at the best of times, especially who’s living in metropolitan cities where the cost of living is extremely high. Not to mention in this difficult time how are they going to cope with life.
62% of artists in the United States are unemployed because of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, and the shutdowns the pandemic has caused. The survey data from Artist Relief and Americans for the Arts reveals a stark reality for an already competitive sector. Among the many industries injured by social distancing and illness, the arts are struggling economically.
Before going into interviews I did some research with the research question, netnography & benchmark
I focused more on benchmarks, I downloaded some famous museums’ app and observed a bit their functions, including whether they are user-friendly enough, do they have virtual tours, do they have forum… etc.
I found that although they have a great web, full of information; apps on the contrary are quite poor. The design itself, most of them use the same template and despite to purchase museum tickets, there’s nothing more you can do with apps.
I was surprised since I always believed museums are doing quite well in any kind of digital platform. And here is where I saw an opportunity, I tried not to get my conclusion too fast but do more research. Therefore, this brought me to the survey and interviews.
To conclude this survey, I found art is borderless, and regardless of age, gender, nationality. We all believe art is a way we can know ourselves or another better.
Art is an international language and people feel comfortable speaking this language, to tell and be told one’s feelings and thoughts.
Art is beautiful and can make positive affects.
Upcoming is research part 2 — interviews, persona, user journey, scenery, insights, how might we (HMW), brainwriting, MoSCoW
