CCAD

the iPad App

Introduction
The Canadian Contemporary Art Database (CCAD) application for ipads main function with serve the purpose as a search engine. Through three different scopes one can direct their search in any number of possible ways. How this will improve upon the current site is make the data easily assessable and more visually interesting. To make the art or artist you are searching for that much easier to nd. With the art scope directly in mind, it eliminates the endless pages of useless websites from an ordinary website search and only searches relevant information. It will make it more readily available for artists to contact one another or nd artists who are similar to your search. An easier way to navigate through the overwhelming information is the goal here and will be achieved in several ways, one is the breadcrumb. The breadcrumbs will essentially leave a trail for you to follow and look at where you have been and be able to know exactly where you are on the site at all times. Also, the application will entail three possible search options, the rst of which would be an open search. What the open search does is a basic browse option. Type in a general idea of what you seek and the database will search through the thousands of images and display results for you to browse through. The guided search option acts as a more advanced search function, if you know more specically what you are looking for, it will give you several categories which you can select options from to narrow your search even smaller to nd the precise item you might be researching, or just interested to know more detailed about. The last option available on the application is the User Picks. This option allows a network of Canadian artists to build an online community where they can view the Top All-time Picks, which allows them to see the most popular and most frequented images or the User Picks, which allow them to created their own database and save for the themselves or to share with others the last option is a CCAD employee list, which would showcase what the database is currently interested in and viewing as well. The nal piece that is included is a scrollable background image, one can drag their ngers to change through the spotlight photos and see whats new or whats available on the database itself. So the new CCAD iPad application will solve the websites existing problem of navigation, the visually stagnate identity and lack of Canadian artist community.

The Faade

Final Icons

SEARCH

USER PICKS

GUIDED SEARCH

INFO

USERS

TOP USERS

TOP CCAD

TOP OVERALL

EDIT

ADD TO LIST

RESULTS FORMATTo her surprise the results have been sorted and placed into categories according her key words, Toronto, Film, Video, and Artist. In addition to similar functions used on the Google search bar to rate the information, the app also categorizes the search instead of showing endless pages of results, therefore Sarah has the option of searching each category separately.

Scenario One
CCAD PERSONA: Sarah

THE SEARCH ENGINESeeing as her project has a very short timeline, she needs to nd the contact information as accurately and quickly as possible. When the application opens, she is greeted and given the option to navigate the database in three different ways: open search, guided search and userpicks.

Assuming that the search bar will nd specic information easily, she presses the open search option, types in her request: Toronto Film and Video Artists. Since the app is hosted on a dedicated server, the results appear almost instantaneously.

A popout page slides into place and offers all available information on the artist, such as his e-mail, work previews, curriculum vitae, etc.

At this point she checks the rst and last category on the list: Medium and Currently Practicing. which takes her straight into the Film and Video list that highlight the medium and the practice status.

COLLECTING INFORMATION Having a list available she quickly browses between results and selects one that ts her needs.

NAME: Sarah AGE: 28 LANGUAGE: English OCCUPATION: Curator INTERESTS: Fine Arts, Indie Music, History, Photography CURRENTLY: Living in Toronto and recently received an e-mail with a job offer for curating a show SARAHhas dedicated her life to curating a variety of contemporary art projects. She has lived in British Columbia all her life and has recently decided to move to Toronto to search for better, more challenging curating projects. Upon arrival she visits several galleries and installations in the Toronto downtown area, leaving her business card at each location. She has now received an e-mail with a very exible job opportunity; she has been asked to nd and recruit a number of local artists for a collaborative lm and video installation at the Distillery District happening in a few weeks time. At this point she picks up her iPad and opens the Contemporary Canadian Art Database App to begin gathering contact information.

In addition, Sarah will not only be visiting one but several artists pages. Therefore a bread-crumbs function is present at all times.

With this function she will be able to go back to a specic point in her search and nish recruiting artists for her installation.

She happens across an illustration that peeks her interest,

Scenario Two
CCAD PERSONA: Anna
6
She chooses the icons to enlarge one particular image, and also displays a brief bio of the artist. She likes the artist so much she decides to her Add to List.

Anna opens the application not knowng exactly what she was looking for. So we decided to browse through the spotlight images to see if can nd anything of interest.

She browses through several images, by swiping

9 4
Age: 18 Language: English Occupation: Student Interests: Fine Arts, Museums, Hanging with friends Currently: A rst year student at OCAD in Toronto studying Fine Arts. Anna: She just started at york university a couple of months ago, there are so many projects and assignments. Sometimes it can be hard to nd inspiration for all the paintings and projects she has to do. She recently received a project from her Canadian Artistic Roots class to create a piece of art based on a Contemporary Canadian art. At rst she was a little lost, after extensively searching on google for anything that would help me and go through pages and pages of content still not nd anything relevant to what she was browsing for. This is why a couple of weeks ago She downloaded the CCAD application for her iPad tablet. The application was exactly what she was looking for. It allows her to search through multiple engines to get exactly what she is looking for. If She want to look up examples of Canadian artists in the acrylic medium its as simple as inputting it in. Through the simple easier to use navigation she can browse though thousands of images to casually look through images to nd exactly what shes looking for in terms of inspiration. The best part for her is all the images are relevant to art and unlike google with many irrelevant sites and images, its all Canadian Contemporary Art and nothing else. When she dont know what exactly I want to nd I can look through the spotlight images or just use the open search or use the user picks reccomendation from other artists like herself to see what they are looking at and enjoying as well. Creating a community of Canadian artists just like herself to explore what Canadian art has to offer Anna. She chose to add to the recommendations or read through everyone else's or the CCADs recommendations itself.
So see selects the open search option and types in Illustration

She simply then adds the piece into her collection for others to see and to save for later

Search results are displayed, which she can scroll through by draging her nger up or down.

She chooses the Top User Pick option to view the list of users and to add to her own individual list.

She scrolls through the list of users and she taps on her own account to add the new inspiration she found to the list to save for later and show others what shes interested in.

10

As she is done this current search all she has to do to exit this search is simply gently shake her ipad to refresh the search, and can start again to her hearts content.

Dante opens up Efes list and after a few moments of browsing he realized that this will prove a valuable tool for his project

Scenario Three
CCAD PERSONA: Dante

Dante goes into the section titled User Picks. He wants to have a look at his Girlfried Efes picks so he can see what the site has to offer and if it will be able to provide interesting imagery that will work for his project

Efe tells him to select my picks as that is where her personal user lists are saved. He does so.

Dante decides to restart and make his own list on Efes account since she has agreed to let him use her iPad for his meeting in the morning. He gives the iPad a shake as that is the restart function.

Dante returns to the main menu, this time selecting the guided search option since he knows the general perameters of what he wants but not the details of what artists hes searching for.

Dante selects medium as his rst choice of category. He knows that the company is looking to have a variety of mediums incorporated in the book so he gures this is a good place to start his search.

Dante is sure to select a variety of mediums, but not ones he doesnt think will translate well into book form. Things like audio art wont work in his opinion. He is satised with his choices and so he selects the go option to see his results.

Dante scrolls through his results. They look fairly diverse and the imagery seems bright and dynamic. He is pleased with what he sees at a glance but wants a closer look bere deciding for sure.

Age: 55 Language: English Occupation: Senior Business Executive Interests: Books, art criticism, cooking, and woodworking Currently: Working with a London Based Publishing Firm on a new book project Dante: Dante is a 55 year old Senior Business Marketing Executive for a large publishing rm in London, England. For his companys next publicatio nproject, they are attempting to position a new book on the market that will appeal to creative types as a sort of coffee table book. The book itself is a retrospective of creative ingenues of the late twentieth century. In their brief, which Dante recently received, they stated that they want to include a wide selection of subject matter, including business people, mathematiciams, inventors, writers, archeologists, artists, and the like. Additionally, they want to ensure that they are selecting individuals from most of the G20 countries. Working alphabetically down the list the creative research team is currently working on Canada. Dante is in close contact with the team as he is advising them on how to best reach their target demographic with the content they are choosing. They are currently composing their list of notable Canadian artists who create work in a variety of mediums, that is also visually appealing and highly unique. Dante has been incredibly busy with other elements of the project but he receives an email saying he has a meeting with the creative department the next morning. Not being Canadian or an art buff, Dante is in a bit of a pinch. He talks to his girlfriend Efe who is knowledgeable of art and the like. She says that she has an app for the Canadian Contemporary Art Database which is pretty easy to use if he would be interested in giving that a try. Dante grabs her iPad, and pulls up the site. He quickly realizes that this is a perfect tool for quickly nding, and cross referencing artists and compiling a list of the artists he likes.

Dante taps the image next to the artists name to get a closer look. He is impressed bu the ease with which he can view information about the artist as well as images of their works. He continues looking at the artists the search generated and saves the ones of interest as he goes.

10

Seeking to further rene his list however, Dante remembers he has to reference only artists in the twentieth century. He returns to the options menu using the breadcrumbs which are handily located on the lower left side of the screen. This time he selects period, and century as his categories in addition to the mediums he previously selected.

11

Dantes rened search items pop up. He glances through the list, sliding up and down it as before....

12

As he is doing this he realizes he can slide the entire right menu to the side and look at the featured artist images in the background. This draws his attention to some interesting works he might not have otherwise seen.

13

Getting back on task, dante decides to also cross reference his list with the most popular artists so hes sure to have artists that are relevant and will appeal to a large audience.

14

After selecting top 100, he generates a new list of results. Again he scrolls through the list and selects artists.

15

After closely examining a few more artists that the list has provided, Dante saves them for his nal compilation. He has a feeling that hes nailed it...If he does say so himself.

16

Dante looks through the list of artists he has compiled using this tool. He is satised and saves it as Dantes List under Efes account. He is impresed by how quickly and efciently he was able to both operate the tool and nd suitable artists. He is thankful he was able to get ready for tommorrows meeting so quickly using this app instead of spending hours aimlessly browsing on google.