Figma File Link: https://www.figma.com/design/DiWAV7zfYKOqkTsn5ziWy0/UCI-Design-a-thon-2024---Work-File?node-id=1%3A2&t=GErLChGr5rwhQAeZ-1
Video Demo Link: https://youtu.be/GimTpjuCtB8
Free Response: Briefly describe your project in relation to the challenge prompt (max 200 words)
Our project, Arture, is a mobile app designed to cultivate creative expression and cultural inclusivity through art education. By providing a platform where students can express their creativity through various art styles, Arture fosters an environment that celebrates diversity of thought and encourages creative risk-taking. With a focus on art originating from different cultures around the world, Arture hopes to provide students with a more diverse worldly perspective. We also encourage students to dive deeper into their cultural heritage. A study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that 87% of students participating in culturally relevant arts programs reported a stronger connection to their cultural roots and greater pride in their background. As youth are becoming increasingly disconnected from their backgrounds, we find that reconnecting through the arts will help them revitalize their bond to their past.
Through storytelling techniques integrated into our classes, such as historical context for the art style being taught, we convey the authenticity of cultural art forms, empowering marginalized voices to reclaim their visibility. Arture aims to bridge the gap between improving students’ technical proficiency and increasing their sensitivity to the world around them, creating a more inclusive and equitable society through creativity.
Describe your main design decisions and how they contribute to your product (max 300 words)
Designing education and mentorship-based apps presents unique challenges, especially when ensuring the product meets user needs effectively and has potential for user retention. Our app caters to both students and mentors, but we prioritized designing the student experience to meet the prompt's objectives and time constraints. While connecting students with their own cultures through art forms is a key draw of our product, we also want to encourage them to engage in other cultures, fostering a broader appreciation and understanding.
Cultural inclusivity and sensitivity greatly shaped the features designed and how our visual and text-based content were curated. Our Discover page was the biggest challenge as we did not want to limit students on what classes they can or can not take. Rather than only showing classes based on a student's cultural heritage, we also have “Featured,” “Trending,” and “New” classes to encourage exploration. Through outside research, we identified that art can help students retain historical information. This guided us to add features offering historical contex, with classes sharing the history and cultural significance of art styles. This manifested in a "Cultural Value” and “Popular Works Gallery" feature to showcase examples of these works and their origins.
To enhance engagement beyond traditional educational apps like Coursera, we briefly incorporated some gamification elements. Leveraging our app's name, Arture (a combination of “art” and culture”), we combined archery and art together for our branding and the terminology used across our app. A standout feature, "Wild Card," encourages students to explore courses outside their cultural comfort zones especially when not knowing what they want to explore or learn. Additionally, we introduced achievement badges to reward user interactions. We ensured that these achievements didn’t foster competition or suggest a finite learning journey with our app.
Built With
- figjam
- figma
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