Art is the universal language of humanity. Art viewing not only evokes aesthetic pleasure but also inspires people to create their own art. In this digital age, more and more museums democratize their art by making their digital collections freely available online. However, these online sources are mainly targeted at researchers and visit planners who have specific search goals in mind. For inspiration-seekers who usually start with a vague idea, the current way of access to museum digital collections–searching through metadata–limits their exploration.

This graduation project explored how to help novice artists seek inspiration in museum online collections. Through literature review on the topics of inspiration and creativity and interviews with creators, an understanding of the context was gained. According to the user study, museum digital collections are more valued by beginner artists. The design goal and target group were narrowed down for the following ideation phase. Three interaction qualities, guiding, resonating and encouraging were used as guidance through the exploration.

Based on the insights gathered from the context exploration, four rapid prototypes were developed and tested with seven participants to define the final design direction. In addition, the interface of the chosen prototype was redesigned to enhance its usability.

The final concept, ArtMind, is an online tool that allows users to make textual associations to diverge their ideas while also recommending them similar artworks to converge ideas. The final design consists of three core functions: associating search, recommending artworks with similar visual characteristics and making personal collections.

Finally, ​​user testing allowed me to evaluate whether my design solution achieves the design goal. Participants claimed that ArtMind offers a unique inspirational path. By broadening their thinking pathways, users were able to generate more original ideas.