The Waniskâw Foundation: Building a Digital Art Tool Designed For Indigenous Youths in Canada
Role: Project Manager & User Researcher
The Brief
- Build an open-source digital vector art designed for Indigenous youths in varying communities across Canada.
- The intent is to remove technological and financial barrier that prevent youths from accessing the art tool.
- Long term goal for the client is being able to integrate the art tool to their current coding tool.
Process
Duration: 3 months
Planned project timeline using Gantt chart and executed the project based on a critical path.
Conducted weekly sprint planning for iterative design and did daily stand-ups to remove blockers between designers and developers.
Used the Agile and Kanban methodologies to execute the project
Managed project progress and resolving tickets using Trello.
Conducted user research and user playtest to identify user pain points and iterate on the art tool prototype.
Impact
Built a functional prototype of an art tool that the client can test in his upcoming education workshops with the Indigenous youths in Fall 2025.
The functional prototype of the art tool allows users to do the following functionality:
- creating shapes (triangle, square, rectangle, polygon) using shape tool
- creating lines
- creating organic shapes using pen tool
- selecting objects and points
- adjust colors of shapes and adjust line thickness
UI Layout Wireframe
Video Trailer of The Waniskâw’s Art Tool
To play around with the prototype of the art tool – here’s the link. Click the Project button > Add Art File > Name your art file and set canvas size, then start drawing!