Arts and Cultural Management Studies (ACMS) encompasses connected areas ranging from organizational strategy to museum curation and event planning. It is easy to think of each area of an arts organization as its own insular field or specialty, but in attaching the idea of an arts ecosystem, the considerations of the field as a whole become more interwoven. The arts ecosystem of a city can be likened to a natural ecology; organizations operate in delicate balance to keep resources and participants flowing. The larger arts landscape is the overall ecosystem, while the individual organizations contain their own ecologies of experience. While these organizations all live in harmony, there is tight competition for resources and audience attention. In pursuing the engagement of participants, arts organizations can assume the role of a user experience (UX) practitioner. Practitioner in this context meaning audience or user of an arts service or experience. Using principles of UX theory, a case can be made for arts organizations to invest in research that will benefit both their internal ecosystem and their positions in the greater arts landscape. When arts populations are in competition for resources and audience attention, the organizations that are most successful are the ones that are able to set themselves apart while also achieving harmony with the other arts organizations within the ecosystem. User experience research principles can be used to design these distinctions and create order, filling the gaps of ACMS strategy to focus wholly on participant experience.
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