Research Highlights

We sought for the definitions and the associations of craft-making.

Problem Scoping

When I was traveling to Philadelphia, I found that there was a significant population of African artists who were largely overlooked in the tourism industry. As a tourist, I had limited access to minority-owned businesses, and I struggled to find information about ethnic enclaves while planning my trip online. I wondered why these individuals, who keep traditional multicultural crafts alive, were not receiving more attention.

In the digital age, how might we protect and preserve cultural diversity ?

Narrowing Down

Crafts preservation is a big term, but how do we approach the idea? We then looked at the associations with crafts and craftsmanship. After preparatory research, we identified some keywords related to crafts preservation. We realized that crafts and craft making are not just about the physical object itself, but denote a particular approach to connect with the cultural heritage and the environment.

Photos by Philip Cheung for The Washington Post.

Functionality List

After the preparatory research, our team decided to focus on the contextual meaning of crafts.

We listed our core values for our design:

1. Build understanding about cultural stories and the environment; 2. Allocate information of unspotlighted artisans, and put them on the digital platform; 3. Inspire artists and teachers with adaptive solutions of preserving traditional art forms; 4. Provide extra income for artisans and craftspeople.

Key Approaches

After identifying our priority list, we mapped out our stakeholders central to the platform. We then conducted 12 stakeholder interviews and market audits, identifying current methods and problems of preserving crafts with design and technology.

After in-depth interviews, we understood the market need and schedule. We then ideated artisanCrafts, a platform that facilitates workshop booking, and developed it to connect crafts people with elementary school teachers.