Fluffy clouds descend from the top of the website

DA Solar Eclipse

The Task:

After conducting user surveys with former and current users, My goal for this new interface was to simplify viewing and sharing artists' work and notifications.

The Challenge: Reduce the amount of clicks in order to navigate through the site in order to prevent fatigue on the eclipse interface.

Target Audience: Professional and hobbyist artist

Why DeviantArt?: As a former user of the site for over 20 years, I watch the website's decline. The issues brought up by many of the users are echoed by myself. I want nothing more than to see the company that helped me grow as an artist and designer to succeed. Having the experience and familiarity with it's user mad for a intuitive time working with different areas of user research.

Role: UX Researcher & UI Prototyper

Method: User Survery and Interviews conducted to help initial redesign

Approach: After several phases of interviews and research, wireframed and prototyiping was created to started a new usuer interfacing.

DeviantArt Timeline

Initial Research

Rebranding in 2014

Became more modern like other social media. However to users and had mixed reviews.

DeviantArt’s concept of “Breed and bleed art” is not taken seriously due to the inclusiveness of all types of artwork.

Mature content and not safe for work (NSFW) is easily accessible to minors and casual visitors.

DeviantArt's lack of censorship gave the site a bad reputation and is discouraged from being used for professional use.

DeviantArt Eclipse Interface 2018

Pros of Current Interface

  • Sleek and modern interface
  • Uniformity of the imagery and user profiles
  • The presentation of artwork is clear and interactive.

Cons of Interface

  • Light and dark modes too drastic
  • Old user interface from 2014.
  • Complex Navigation
  • The notification system not user-friendly

Understanding the User's Needs

User Interviews Summary

  • Each interview lasted between 30 to 40 minutes and helped discover additional aspects of the site’s interface.
  • Together the user and I discovered old and new interfacing throughout the site.
  • Obsessive numbers of clicks
Zoom interview with current DevianArt User

Survey Data Summary

  • Users are still having issues inbox management
  • Navigational issues when searching for journals and viewing messages, notes, and chats.
  • User want to connect and see each others artwork with little to no resistance from the interface.
User feedback from over 2000 users

Freelance Artist

  • Behaviors: Interacts professionally with followers to
  • Goals: to gain more clientelle and increase sales on their artistic merchandise.  
  • Needs: To get through a large amount of notification with relative ease.

Hobbyist Artist

  • Behaviors: Communicate regularly with their friends on the site.
  • Goals: Find new artist with similar intrest
  • Needs:  Able to easily connect with other user for common intrests as well as to be able to easily.

Site Usage Data By These Personas

User Painpoints

57% of Users

In both user interview and surveys, frequent user to the site had issues recieving and removing notificationsfrom their inbox. This has been constant issue on the site since the Eclipse UI was first introduced.

DeviantArt's Competitors

Tumblr: Friendly Interface that has many colors themes for fun and personalization.

Artstation: Focuses on featuring polished Artworks in as much space as possible.

Pixiv: Keep the interface simple and open toallow for ease of finding a specific topic of art.

Redesigning The Interface

Challenge: Seprating out the various deviation types via the submision process makes easier.

Chats and Notes have a similar function and are overlapped on top of each other when checking these notifications making it very confusing.

Wireframes

Wireframes for the home and explore pages. Submiting deviation (artwork) Should be seamlessly included into page no matter where the user goes.

DeviantArt User Journey

Homepage

Singular images submitted by a user have been designed as a collapsible panel.

The design allows the user to comment on a deviation without moving from the home page. A collection of images can be viewed in a carousel.

Submitting Artworks From The Homepage

When on either the homepage or the explore page, a user can submit Art quickly using the angular green button to the right side of the screen. Once clicked, the user will have options for submitting artworks.

DeviantArt User Journey

Homepage

Singular images submitted by a user have been designed as a collapsible panel.

The design allows the user to comment on a deviation without moving from the home page. A collection of images can be viewed in a carousel.

Submitting Artworks From The Homepage

When on either the homepage or the explore page, a user can submit Art quickly using the angular green button to the right side of the screen. Once clicked, the user will have options for submitting artworks.

The Explore Page

Highlights artists who have created art in the communities via deviations, groups, and forums.new users, and finally trending artists. The arrangement of these profiles gets the user to discover more artists as they continue to engage with the site. Daily Deviations are images selected by the staff that showcases excellent art in the community. They will be featured front and center at the top.

Messaging and notification

I created an organized system to allow users to manage messages with ease. I’m still working on incorporating a feature that allows users to remove all messages at once.

The Takeaway

Taking a deep dive into the design of an existing interface makes me understand and appreciate why design decisions were made. The main issue with Eclipse’s current interface is that things need to continue being developed into a more user-friendly experience.

I decided to call my redesigned version of the interface “Solar Eclipse." A solar eclipse represents determination and connections while embracing change. I want the site and the interface to be as successful as possible for its users. To do this, it’s important to keep shedding light on the issues and change for the better of the collective. The next step moving this project forward is to refine the interface is to continue editing the Solar Eclipse Interface and begin the second wave of user testing.

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