Just like contemporary media, museums intend to please people as well as educate them. Today, internet growth and development, including the enhancement of three-dimensional tools, encourage virtual art galleries. Due to the pandemic, more and more museums close their doors to people who want to view art galleries. Consequently, many museums like Art Basel have had to build a digital-only exhibition. However, the reality is that most of these digital exhibitions do not resonate with the experience at the actual museum.
User Interface design focuses on the looks when building interfaces. The goal is to create interfaces that are pleasing to the users using a particular style. The use of UI in virtual art galleries is critical since it determines how people interact with the art. Therefore, one must consider the following when designing UI:
Most people who interact with UI only care about its usability and visual quality.
- The UIs should resonate with the needs of the user hence making it more enjoyable.
- The UI must communicate a feeling or emotion towards the brand.
During two weeks and more, as I mentioned in the previous week, I have already started the structure for the presentation website. Thankfully, nowadays, we have better-optimised platforms that help us save time and work faster being responsive. My website’s responsiveness helped me immensely because the interface automatically adapts to different screens depending on the device.
The old times when we are designing for many screen size devices are gone. Those two weeks, I worked on the interface, on the website’s colour palette, and adapted all icons and images I needed on the platform. I had some issues with a few pages, but I solved them in time. With the website part of the project, everything worked smoothly, technically, but it took a lot of time to upload the content on the platform. The Gant Chart is changed, I finished with a week in advance, but I still have content to upload in the future on the website. At this point, because everything worked smoothly, I am pleased with the stage where I am.
During my researches, I found that the nature of the current art exhibitions has certain limitations that hinder their growth and development. Virtual art galleries look to solve the problems that physical art galleries face. Some of the problems that virtual art galleries look to solve include:
- Space: A normal art museum will only display 3% of its artwork; this is majorly due to lack of space. For one to enjoy art displays, there is a need to find a good space for display. A virtual reality artwork solves this as it does not require any additional space, even in cases of overcrowding.
- Time: Sometimes people do not get the time to visit museums due to other responsibilities. However, a virtual will enable individuals to enjoy the artwork from anywhere. Moreover, some artworks are only available for a certain period.
- Accessibility: People find it hard to go around a physical art exhibition. Again, those who cannot move around freely due to physical incapacitation find it difficult to access artworks.
For something particular, but a feature in continuing growing with the best retail globally is the AR product. Supporting this idea, I made a simulation for the AR feature when the buyer will place the artefact he wants to purchase in the real world to see if it will fit in the place.
