The process of doing the user research was challenging because we didn’t have easy access to the demographics that our client is targeting. Although the team could have gone through the SFU (Simon Fraser University) ethics board to allow us to survey and interview youths, we decided not to go down that route because the time taken to get an approval is quite long. Considering the 12-week timeline of our project, it was not in our best interests to wait that long as it would have significantly delayed the project timeline. Instead, we interviewed local indigenous artists at art fairs to get a better understanding of their process and the art softwares they used.

Key themes from user research:

• Indigenous artists/youths prefer to explore themes like stories from their Nations, Pokémon, original characters, and a fusion of Indigenous and street art styles.

• They also enjoy collaborative creation, and find value in their community and the ability to contribute their personal styles to shared projects.

• Procreate is a popular tool used among 2D artists and illustrators, especially the Line tool because it helps create custom lines and shapes that are used as motifs in a lot of indigenous art forms.

• Many Indigenous comic writers draw inspiration from manga rather than western comics, as the latter don’t have the same values and perspectives that Indigenous communities do.