Abstract

Lugano Art & Cultural Centre has gained a reputation of an ‘elitist’ space amongst the younger generations, which is something they didn’t intend to achieve. Our objective with this project was to make LAC more accessible to the youth, and consequently inspire greater engagement and involvement from them. It resulted in the creation of COLLACTIVE— a free expression space provided by LAC, wherein, anyone can meet, collaborate and steer their own creativity. This system is implemented through various touch points & spaces, of which, the phone application and the LAC square play a key role.

To elaborate further, the way COLLACTIVE works is, every month, anyone can propose an event (centered around art, creation or expression) that resonates with theme of the month. If approved by the curators at LAC, the event is posted on the platform, and other individuals are free to join, collaborate & exchange ideas. Ultimately, on colLACtive day, all these participants meet at the venue and bring their ideas to life. Other than pushing peoples’ creativity, colLACtive also acts as a great social initiative, to break through the elitism & sterility that LAC has been known for.

Interface and interaction modality

Of the digital touchpoint (phone app, website, kiosk) each provide a set of functionalities that are best suited to the platform.
PHONE APP: The phone application being the primary digital touchpoint, provides 3 main functionalities: to create events, join events and also browse through the COLLACTIVE archives of the past. The application uses a horizontal timeline based interface. The home screen shows the events for the current month’s COLLACTIVE events, swiping right takes the user to next month’s COLLACTIVE, wherein, the call for proposals is open, and the theme is introduced to the user. Alternately left swipe from the home screen, takes the user to the previous COLLACTIVE archive and so on.
WEBSITE: The website allows users to join events and browse through past COLLACTIVE archives along a similar timeline interface. The create event functionality isn’t integrated on the website because of the video creation requirement, for which a laptop or desktop is not the best suited device.
KIOSK: The kiosk is installed in the LAC square in order to engage LAC visitors & passers by. Which is why, the kiosk provides access to the archives of the past COLLACTIVES, which users can browse through, and read about in further detail if they choose to.

Technology

Two major tools were used for the creation of the prototype: Sketch & Marvel App. All designs were created on Sketch, which were then imported into Marvel App in order to simulate the interactions.

User Experience

MOBILE APP: The timeline based interface makes the link between these 3 sections (past, upcoming & next month COLLACTIVE) very apparent and easily accessible based on individual user preferences.
One of the key aspects to creating an event is that, the creator must shoot a short 5-7 second video in order to communicate the idea. We found this to be a crucial aspect of the experience since it instigates the act of creation right from the get go. Moreover, it provides very communicative & intruiging visual content for the application.

KIOSK: Its purpose is to inform people about the idea behind the COLLECTIVE initiative and the work that is being produced through it. For someone who is on the move in a public space, bold, moodboard-ish visual content, that can be quickly browsed through would best capture their attention. Ofcourse, for those interested, access to further details is also available.

Research and development context

  • The interface of the mobile app was tested during the prototyping phase, which allowed us to iterate and build on it. However further testing would be useful to refine the application and further richness to the UI & UX.
  • Similar user testing & iteration should be done with the web and kiosk interface.
  • Besides these digital touchpoints, it would be interesting to organise a ‘COLLACTIVE EVENT’ through personal networks, friends & LAC’s collaboration, in order to test the strong and week points of the logistics, social and co-creative aspects of this service, and iterate accordingly.