The Art Genome Project
Through my role as Researcher on The Art Genome Project at Artsy I dovetailed my art history background and UX skills. During my time in the role I researched and created data profiles on 2,000+ artists, workshopped new feature ideas and also contributed to the improvement of the information architecture.
What is The Art Genome Project?
“The Art Genome Project is an ongoing study to map the characteristics (known as 'genes') that connect the world's artists and artworks. There are over 500 genes including art-historical movements, subject matter, and formal qualities.
For instance, Artsy might connect Andy Warhol to Damien Hirst via the Pop Culture gene, or Ai Weiwei with Botticelli via the Metaphor/Allegory gene. These connections create endless opportunities for discovery and learning."
On the front end ‘genes’ are called ‘Categories’ and help to organize artworks and fuel discovery.
Our research directly improves the ‘Related Artists’ feature
The research, and resulting data, that myself and the team generates powers the ‘Related Categories’ feature and directly improves the results for the ‘Related Artists’ feature.
Iterative product and process
The Art Genome Project is iterative and brings researchers, engineers, designers and product managers together. Its a collaborative and engaging process whether we are trying to improve category descriptions, refine the overall architecture through card sorting or work on the UI for applying ‘genes’
Sketching out how ‘gene’ templates might work
2,000+
Personally genomed over 2,000 artists.