Tyne & Wear Museums Website
Challenge
Tyne & Wear Museums (TWM) is a collection of 12 museums and galleries. They hold internationally important collections of art, science and technology, archaeology, military and social history, fashion, and natural sciences.
The TWM website needed refreshing and its navigation enhancing. In so doing, there was a clear opportunity to embrace new technologies, an increasingly important communications area for all museums.
But how do you communicate the individual appeal of 12 different institutions, yet present them under one brand umbrella? Moreover, how do you make sense of the volume of information, in terms of ‘what’s on’, collections and actiities data, that 12 venues can generate?
Idea
Starting with a full content audit of the existing site, we mapped out a new structure that made it significantly easier for visitors to locate and extract relevant information. Behind the scenes, the content management system enables shared content authoring so that the site can be continually updated.
At the same time, our redesign gave the site a more impactful and dynamic look and feel. Each museum or gallery is highlighted and can be fully explored, whilst maintaining an overarching Tyne & Wear brand. A calendar feature also serves to unite the venues.
An important new part of the site was ‘CultureCast’, a podcast magazine. The podcasts include features on exhibitions and interviews with artists, as well as making available the various talks and lectures given at the different museums and galleries. We were also able to advise on other developments such as blogging, social networking sites and links to Flickr.
Response
In the first month alone, visitor numbers to the site rose by 14%, while page views and time spent on the website by visitors have also increased substantially.
Visit the Tyne & Wear Museums website