The first questions to be answered are who are digital art users and what do they enjoy about the current landscape of digital art websites?  What problems are there to solve?  To answer this question, I performed foundational research. I planned to do three phases.

• Session I - a 20 minute structured interview 

• Session II- a 60 minute contextual interview (with select participants) to identify user pain points of selected digital art websites. 

• Session III- a ten minute contextual interview with the client's digital art as it is presented now. 

 I created a screener to filter qualified participants. For this particular project, I sought to interview five participants.  I found a small informative study posted on the website medium by Kat Mustatea that served as secondary research I could compare my research with. 

Screener questions to select qualified participants.

  For participant management, I used www.userinterviews.com/. Participants could self select for the interview.  I asked artists to tweet a link. I spoke with people in digital art fan groups on social media, and I shared the link with my network. I created a screener to find a representitive population sample. I used the results of the screener to select qualified applicants.  I also collected data from the screener itself to gain insights.

To reduce bias, I examined my own preconceptions about digital art and ensured I asked open ended questions, took detail notes, and monitored my tone and body language during interviews. 

Informed consent

Each participant was informed about the study and signed a consent form.  I wanted to ensure compliance with user data for this project. I coordinated with the qualifed partipants via email and conducted the interviews over Zoom. I also added a small incentive for each session managed through www.userinterviews.com for participation.