OTA - Reimagining How Art History Could Be Learned Through Collecting, Play, And Storytelling

OTA (Oli the Artist) is an interactive learning system that turns art history from passive consumption into active discovery. Through collectible cards, character-driven narratives, and digital experiences, it creates more engaging and accessible ways to explore art and build connections across history.

Educational Technology
UX/UI
Physical + Digital

OTA app scanner on a phone, surrounded by faded artist cards and gallery screens.

Duration

2023.02 - Present

project type

Internship Project · 3-person team

role

Product & Brand Designer

MY CONTRIBUTION

Product and UX/UI design across OTA’s app, collectible cards, packaging, artist books, and character IP, supported by market and material research, design strategy, and physical prototyping.

TOOLS USED

Digital Design & AI Figma · Codex · Xcode · ChatGPT · Lovable · Kling AI · Gemini
3D Modeling & Visualization SolidWorks · KeyShot
Physical Prototyping Printed Cards · Packaging Prototypes

Framed scenes of OTA cards, a painted Oli, and a pixel-game portrait

A1 Problem Framing

Young learners are growing up tapping, exploring, discovering, and interacting — while traditional art history learning still asks them to slow down, read, and observe.

The challenge lies in the misalignment between modern interaction behaviors and traditional art history learning.

Modern Behavior

Fast-paced

Fragmented

Interactive

v.s.

Traditional Art History Learning

Long-term focus

Dense

Passive

A2 Market Insights

We studied adjacent systems to understand what makes people return, collect, and form lasting connections.

Market insights. Collectible cards turn accumulation into ownership. Surprise-based collectibles turn anticipation into continued discovery. Character-driven systems turn familiarity into emotional connection.

To synthesize...
Anticipation sustains discovery. Accumulation builds ownership. Familiarity creates connection.

A3 Design Opportunity

What if art history wasn’t something you studied passively, but a world you could explore, collect, and make your own—with a companion by your side?

A4 Concept Statement

OTA transforms art history into a collectible, exploratory system, guided by a recurring character companion - Oli the Kitten !

Oli the kitten introducing art history, collecting cards, exploring, and celebrating progress

B1 Users

Layered user ecosystem: children as primary users, with parents and teens and adults as secondary audiences

B2 Experience Strategies AI

These strategies focus on how OTA’s product decisions surface in the user experience. ( Not the full set of research, development, & execution strategies behind the product.)

Building on our market insights, three experience strategies shape how users connect, collect, and continue discovering.

Insight: recurring characters build familiarity and emotional connection over time. Experience strategy: Oli anchors the experience across physical and digital touchpoints, creating continuity throughout the learning journey.

Insight: collecting makes progress tangible and personally meaningful. Experience strategy: physical cards turn learning into an evolving collection, where ownership unlocks new paths to discover.

Insight: continued discovery needs new reasons and pathways to explore. Experience strategy: AI expands curated art knowledge through pre-generated content and adaptive exploration while keeping users in control.

B3 Positioning

OTA is a physical-digital art discovery system that combines collectible objects with an app to turn art learning into an ongoing experience of collecting, exploring, and discovery.

Rather than separating learning from collecting, OTA connects physical ownership with ongoing digital discovery.

OTA as the sum of artist cards, the app, an artist book, a puzzle, and future extensions

Physical ownership anchors the experience, while connected digital touchpoints turn each object into a new path for discovery.

B4 Product Architecture

OTA is a knowledge-driven system, where knowledge is centrally structured and distributed across a set of coordinated touchpoints.

Product architecture showing the knowledge system delivered through the card deck, app, artist book, puzzle, and future extensions

C The OTA Products

C1 OTA Card Bundle

The OTA card system is built across three levels: the Card Bundle, themed Card Series, and Individual Cards.

> Card Bundle [C1-a] : The complete collectible set, containing three themed Card Series, a User Brochure, and a variable Secret Card that makes each collection unique.

> Card Series [C1-b] : Each series groups cards around a shared theme, creating a structured path for collecting and discovery.

OTA card bundle closed, open box with labeled contents, and a themed card series sleeve

> Artist Card [C1-c] : Each card introduces an artwork and connects to deeper digital content through scanning.

Move your mouse to view different cards

Traditional cards end at ownership.
With OTA, ownership is only the beginning.

C2 OTA App

The card is the entry point. The app turns each collection into an ongoing journey of discovery.

C2-01 Enter through a Card

The OTA Physical Cards Collection and the OTA App work as one connected system, where each card becomes a gateway to its digital experience and personal collection.

A physical OTA card connecting to the scanner experience in the app

C2-02 Unlock More Than the Card Can HoldAI

Once scanned and identified, each card unlocks layers of digital content beyond the physical object — including AI-generated animated artworks and artists’ voices.

Scan & Identify Recognize the card.

Card Info View card details.

Animated Artwork See the artwork come alive.

Artist’s Voice Hear the artist’s story.

C2-03 Discover Beyond the Cards

Discovery continues beyond scanning. Today offers daily curated recommendations, while Explore supports open-ended discovery across artworks, artists, and movements.

Today screen with a daily artwork recommendation and layered artist cards

Today · Daily Discovery Artwork recommendations, refreshed daily.

Explore screens for browsing by movement, theme, time, and place

C2-04 Build A Collection In More Than One Way

My Gallery brings together two collection paths: favoriting art history content while browsing, and collecting physical cards through scanning.

C2-05 Turn Progress into Motivation

OTA motivates continued discovery through achievements and badges, while Days with Oli and Daily Streak reinforce long-term progress and daily consistency.

C2-06 Connect Every Discovery to a Larger StoryAI

From Today, Explore, or My Gallery, users can enter interconnected second-level pages for artworks, artists, and movements to learn their stories, context, and relationships. Entry points throughout each page invite users to continue through related art history content, with Oli supporting deeper AI-assisted exploration.

Movement page for Surrealism with key artworks and artists

About this artwork panel on The Happy Donor

Movement · Explore Its Context

Artwork · Explore Its Story

Artist · Discover the Artist

Beyond Cards & Screens — Extending the OTA System into New Forms of Interaction.

C3 Product Extensions

The OTA system is designed to extend across different forms of interaction. Artist Books and Puzzles are the first two extensions, with more formats envisioned over time.

An OTA artist book held in hand beside a puzzle box with loose pieces

[C3-a] Artist Book: extends the experience through longer-form stories about artists, artworks, and their contexts.

[C3-b] Puzzle: turns elements from artworks into a hands-on activity for playful observation and discovery.

D Growing the OTA Universe

Designed to Grow

OTA was designed not as a fixed set of products, but as a system that can continue to grow. New artists and artworks can expand its knowledge network, while new collections, physical formats, and interactions can introduce new ways to explore and engage with art over time.

Adaptive User Journeys

From first-time onboarding, OTA can guide users into different journeys based on their access level. App-only users begin with the core discovery experience, while activating a physical card through its unique serial number can unlock additional features, including card scanning and expanded AI-powered content.

At its heart, OTA turns art history from something to study into a world to explore, collect, and grow with.