Building a Museum Website

Today, the iMarc business development team is at the annual New England Museum Association (NEMA) conference. The NEMA conference is attended by museum colleagues and executives as well as vendors specializing in museum services. iMarc is there because we've built a number of museum websites including Museum for African Art (New York), Newport Restoration Foundation (Rhode Island), Seacoast Science Center (New Hampshire), Museum of Biblical Arts (New York), and Springfield Museums (Massachusetts).

Success: bring people from the site to the museum

With the recent NEMA activity at iMarc, I've been thinking about the most basic elements that make a museum website successful.

In terms of success factors, the most important job of a museum website is to bring people to the museum. This can be done by fairly easily...

Basic information should be obvious

• Hours of operation and admission cost should be prominent on the homepage.
• Special activities going on today should be highlighted on the homepage.
• The homepage should provide a prominent link to directions.
• Address and phone number incredibly obvious on the homepage.

That's about it. For the person planning to visit the museum, they shouldn't have to go past the homepage. The best thing the website can do for this person is give them the info they need so they can get in their car, drive to the museum, and pay for admission.

If I'm taking my kids to one of the local Children's Museums, I want quick answers to a few specific questions. Is the museum open today? What are the hours? These questions are particularly relevant if the kids are home from school on a holiday. The homepage should make this info easily accessible in big, obvious type. If not, I'll probably call the museum instead of searching around their site. Answering the phone to relay hours or directions is not the most efficient use of a museum staffer's time. They can solve this by putting the info right on the homepage.

The New England Aquarium website does a good job of this.

The Chicago Children's Museum also does a great job of getting all the important information on the homepage. As a parent, I'd appreciate this if I were on my way out the door and just wanted to know when they closed. Contrast that to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum. Imagine the frustrated Pittsburgian parent with screaming kids clicking through page after page to find the hours or print directions.

Big, high-quality photos

Another way to get people to visit the actual museum is to highlight what's inside. Pages about the museum's board of directors, mission, and educational programs definitely serve a purpose. But that purpose is secondary to getting people to visit the museum.

The easiest way to get people excited or interested is by showing big, high-quality photos of the museum's collection. In the case of a children's or historical museum that would mean showing off the grounds or interior.

Again, simplicity is recommended when showing off the collections. Some of the most successful and usable slideshows simply stack photos on a single page.

Boston.com's Big Picture is the ideal format for usability. There's no next or previous buttons, no popping up windows, and no waiting for images to fade from one to the next. To navigate, the user simply scrolls down. iMarc implemented a similar solution for Newport Restoration. Viewing the Museum of Fine Arts Interactive Tour is a bit frustrating, as I find myself waiting for popup windows to load and lots of clicking.

Minimizing distractions & gentle reminders

Most museums do a lot of great research, preservation, and teaching. It's easy to put so much of that content on the site that it overshadows the basics: slideshows, calendar, info about what's currently happening, hours, directions.

Another area worth limiting, especially with budget constraints, is online ticket sales. I personally have been to a lot of museums and have never purchased tickets online. To some customers selling tickets online, will be much-appreciated enhancement. However, with a limited budget, this is the first extravagance that I'd put on hold.

Offering a mailing list or a blog with an RSS feed is a good way to keep users engaged. I'd stay way from regularly emailing users, but gentle reminders associated with interesting events are a great way to keep users thinking about the museum.

Most of these suggestions apply to any website, but museum sites need to pay particular attention to balancing usability and straight-forward information with rich imagery and compelling visuals.