David Zwirner Sales App

Selling Art at the Speed of Conversation

Role: As the lead designer for the Digital Gallery app, it was my responsibility to drive the research, end to end UX/UI design, testing, and dev handoff. Additionally, I managed the design process and reviewed the work of two other designers.

At art fairs like Art Basel and Frieze, every second counts. The sales team at David Zwirner needed a faster, more reliable way to access artwork details and communicate with clients—without breaking the flow of conversation or losing a sale.

Team: I worked with a design pod comprised of a CD, one additional designer, a Product Owner, and a Project Manager. I also worked closely with a dev team.

Platforms: iOS
Disciplines: UX, UI, User Research, Prototyping, User Testing  

Tools: Figma, Origami
Timeline: 10 weeks

Research

Through interviews with 12 salespeople and shadowing them live at fairs, key moments of friction emerged:

Searching for inventory mid conversation broke momentum
The existing appalagged in high traffic settings
Crafting separate emails to send offers slowed things down
Need to discreetly hide data while interacting with customers

Sitemap

Since the app was being built from 0:1, the initial focus was to get the structure correct

The key pages are outlined in purple which are Home (Exhibitions), Artists, Artworks, and Inventory List

Creating this early was key because sitemaps offer a great way for business and dev stakeholders to understand the scope of a project and translate user needs into a concrete product

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Simple wireframes of the app are a good point to get feedback, so there are no visual distractions and stakeholders could focus on a structure that made sense to them

Below is an early iteration of the Home Page. I tried a tabbed structure for Exhibitions & Lists so the user could easily navigate between this two key sections. However, after speaking with stakeholders, it became clear that they had concerns about opening up sensitive information around clients. They wanted a Home Page that was always client friendly with no private data.

Current Exhibitions of the gallery was relevant and always safe for the salesperson to open the app. Further iterations of the design include this decision.

High Fidelity Wireframes

Below is an early version of the Make an Offer flow. The feedback was positive overall, but there was a desire to be able to edit and remove artworks from the offer.

Later iterations include a more dynamic approach to creating offers for the client.

Testing

Usability testing on the wireframes provided key information to guide the final UI. I was able to sit down with 15 salespeople and observe their interactions with the app.  

Testing Questions

Are different sections easily searchable? Artwork inventory, Artist Pages, etc?
What information needs to be private vs public?
Is the offer flow easy to use?

Lessons

At a glance Home Page view with current Exhibitions worldwide
Add sorting options for Artwork Inventory
Toggle for private information
Ability to edit and delete artworks from the offer and integrate with email

I used these findings to go back to the wireframes make some edits led by an iterative design process.

The Home Page contains client friendly Exhibition tiles and easy navigation between tabs. Modular grid components I created for the design system allows cross platform ease.

Client Friendly Home Page

Artwork can be browsed with ease with toggles, filters, and search. Detailed shots of the artwork are available as well as sensitive information behind a tap.

Seamless Search

The gallery Sales Team is able to easily browse exhibitions, find and add artworks to an offer, review and edit, then send an offer. Once ‘send an offer’ is pressed, a pre-populated email will open to send to a client of their choice.

Make an Offer Flow

Artwork Detail Interaction

Using Origami, I mocked up an interaction for the artwork detail viewer. I wanted to highlight that the carousel scroll would pause at each image, giving the viewer the experience of stepping close to an artwork at a gallery. This greatly helped the dev team understand the exact interaction design needed for this key page.