Read time 4 mins

What good UX/UI design looks like for arts & culture

01/08/2024 - UX Design

From The National Gallery to Mall Galleries, The British Museum, Contemporary Art Society, Minack Theatre and The Courtauld, we work with some of the world’s leading and most exciting arts & culture organisations.

Our team of web designers play a big part in this, as their work and the results they have helped generate has built long-lasting relationships with clients. So, when it comes to good UX/UI design, they know what they’re talking about.

But don’t just take our word for it. To uncover the top do’s and don’ts of UX/UI design, common challenges and the essence of what makes good design in the arts & culture space, we sat down with two of our experienced designers, Andy Lally and Kultar Ruprai.

People sat at desks using laptops in the Un.titled office

Get to know our design experts

Andy Lally

Design Lead (UI)

With over 10 years of experience in design, Andy leads the creative process and creative workshopping for our clients.

Kultar Ruprai

Design Lead (UX /UI)

Kultar brings more than 18 years of experience to the team with specialist knowledge in UX, UI, branding and design strategy.

1. What do you enjoy most about design?

Design means different things to different people but what really ignites the fire for you?

Andy: “I enjoy the creativity and problem-solving aspects of design. It’s amazing to see an idea come to life and make a real impact on people.”

Kultar: "There are several reasons why I enjoy design, mostly as we get to be creative and essentially, create something out of nothing. I also enjoy meeting new clients, exploring different sectors and through the process - transforming ideas into visually compelling solutions that meet a need, inspire and improve experiences."

2. Common design challenges/fails in the sector?

Challenges and failures are a significant learning opportunity. By looking at what you can do better, you not only create compelling experiences but also future proof your organisation and increase your ability to tap into new audiences.

Andy: “A big challenge I see in UX and UI design is balancing creativity with usability. Sometimes designs look great but don’t work well. Brands also typically have a legacy of print-based media resulting in a lack of application for digital spaces.”

Kultar: “As Andy mentions, some of the mistakes I see are guidelines that are not digitally focused or fit for purpose. Other common mistakes include overuse of colours or poor colour application, overuse of fonts leading to performance and sustainability issues, overkill on messages and content – without hierarchy, everything reads as priority creating a confusing experience for the user. For us, creating websites that look good, perform well and are accessible remains key to all our projects however, most sites we look at do not meet accessibility needs or are out of date.”

3. What makes Un.titled’s approach to design unique

Having worked at Un.titled for several years, Andy and Kultar reflect on what they feel makes our approach to design unique.

Andy: “Un.titled stands out because we mix client vision with innovative, user-focused solutions. Our collaborative approach and an extensive discovery process enables us to truly understand our client’s and the users' needs and combine creativity and technology to create seamless, functional, and accessible designs.”

Kultar: “We not only have a deep history and expertise within the arts & culture sector, but our design approach has stood the test of time having been iterated thoroughly through trial and error and practice. “

4. In a sentence, what should good UX/UI design do within the arts & culture sector?

Let’s cut through the noise and truly understand the essence of good design.

Andy: “Good design for arts & culture should engage all users, be accessible, and enhance a brand's reputation and presence.”

Kultar: “Good UX/UI design in the arts & culture space is a good balance of great aesthetic design that's on brand, tells a story, engaging but is equally functional, accessible, and makes for a great experience.”

5. Favourite projects?

To round off, Andy shares some of his favourite projects with us.

Andy:

“One of my favourite projects was revamping Mall Galleries digital presence. We created a user-friendly website and ecommerce store which had a huge impact on sales. It’s a real proud moment when your work creates so much impact for a client. What's great is the fact we continuously optimise. We have recently implemented a headless solution for Mall Galleries to further enhance their site.

Contemporary Arts Society was another good project where we integrated information from artists’ Wikipedia pages with the organisation's data base to help users with purchasing decisions. This was not something we had done before and we were only working with a sample set of data to test our work, but we had to accommodate 18,000 pages of content, and we managed to do this successfully."