Bonhams Print & Web
Hawaii & Ca Art 2023
Client: Modern art department
Sector: Impressionism & design
My Role: Strategist & design
Project Time: 12 weeks
Background
Bonhams is a london based in house art seller and has a network of auctions consigning and selling fine art, collectables, motoring, furniture, wine and more.
I am half the design team at Bonhams.
I joined Bonhams as a photographer two years ago as one of 4 photographers in a company of over 8 engineers and 16 catalogers. I support design across every aspect of our business and am responsible for UX asset managment across key parts of the production side of the physical & web design.
I’ve grown tremendously in the last year, some key achievments of which I have listed below:
Implemented a photography process. This has helped our establish more structure to how we conduct our large scaled work and allow other teams to gain visibility across our upcoming sprints.
Improved asset maintenance across the platform. No usabiltiy was conducted by internal consultancy after implementing it to the database. Since we established a design team, we have been actively working towards conducting UX research and usbality testing with clients and employee users.
Establishing a design system. This has helped the Engineering and Product teams to understand how and why we choose to implement the images that we do.
The process
Our process at bonhams based on the double Diamond Theory is waterfall based with an agile methodology.
Gathering Insights
Provenance. After collecting the history, item or piece, I conducted and assesment analysis with my teammeate sythesise the structure in which we would proceed in executing time management in delivering resources.
I relied on a date-driven approach know as the severity framework to inform my process and list time and execution issues in order of priority.
The framework helps to identify the severity score of a time and execution issue based on the following three variables:
Task criticality x impact x frequency = severity
Task criticality - how important is the task to the user? (1 = low, 5 = critical)
Impact - how much of an impact does this issue have on the user’s task? (1 = suggestion, 5 = blocker)
Frequency (%) - how many times does this come up out during production?
Prep
Based on dimension of size, order of which items are received and priority I create a plan between, the lighting techs, stake holders and sales product team on operations of photography:
The Ready. Ensure that items are clean, repaired and organized.
Accuracy. Verify that barecodes are accurate and present, and include the total number of items in each lot.
Organization. Grouping items together for effeciency.
Planning. Tracking with spreadsheets to provide specific photo instructions.
Communicate. Inform between department, sale specialist and crew on property arrival.
Focal Point
The Edward Malcolm and A specific and the DHH are distinct highlights we used that sticks out on the web page and mobile screen design. Taking highlight lots, for maketing on the site. We impemented task implant and frequency chart to move them up the ladder.
File hand off - Upload for images were sent to the database. Where specialists and designers could download them anytime they needed.
Design Phase
Based on the above pieces we designed a booklet based on those attributes:
Scrum: During design placement we implemented an agail framework across teams, comping back with iteration focused on representing the essence of the works
Sprint: During Uploads we would retouch images for for color correction and approval. Establishing clearer visual form hierarchy by grouping related fields.
I quickly mocked up some basic wireframes to gather feedback from the Product team, and stakeholders on the overall layout and structure of the design. This involved establishing a standardised visual hierarchy and layout, fullbleed spreads and column descriptions.
Results and Take Aways
I conducted usability testing sessions with our primary users to validate whether the assets were functional. I mapped out placement including a visual templete for the hierarchy of images framed and cropped .
I have received positive feedback from clients and users about the simplified configuration of assets, saving viewers time.
