The British Museum's online collection, launched in 2007, has expanded to over 2 million records, with significant user engagement metrics recorded. A survey conducted in 2010 revealed user demographics, preferences, and suggestions for improvement, highlighting needs for better search facilities and more images. Findings from the survey will inform a user-centered redesign set to launch in early 2013.

1. British Museum
Collection Online
Matthew Cock, Head of
Web
@matthewcock

2. Collection Online
• Launched 2007 with c. 230,000 records.
• Now has 2,050,441 records.
• 722,262 of these have one or more
images
• At the heart of our core purpose, to be a
Museum of the world, for the world.

3. User statistics 2012
Collection sitewide
Online
Visits 1.1m 13m
(8.5%)
Pageviews 15m 58m
(26%)
Av. pages per visit 13.7 4.38
Av. visit duration 05:19 02:40

4. UCL Research
• Claire Ross, Vera Motyckova, Melissa Terras
• Online 3 June 2010 to 2 July 2010 (SurveyMonkey)
• targeting every 2nd - 5th user
• total of 2,657 respondents
• completed by 1,416 respondents (53.3%)
• 30 main questions
• Multiple choice
• Likert-scale
• Open-ended questions
• Four defined tasks

5. Age?
Age Range Response % Response Count
Under 20 1.60% 20
21 - 30 27.70% 342
31 - 40 22.30% 275
41 - 50 19.70% 243
51 - 60 17.20% 212
61 - 70 9.20% 114
71+ 2.30% 28
answered question 1234
skipped question 99

6. Geographical Location
• 29% UK
– 91% England, 6% Scotland, 3% Wales.
– Most from London
• 17.6% USA
• Germany, Italy, France... Long tail....

7. Q. How did you hear about the COL?
Response Response
Percent Count
Friend 2.50% 27
Professional environment (colleagues) 29.50% 316
Academic environment (website, academic staff, 27.30% 293
fellow student etc
School 1.00% 11
From a link on the Museum’s website 24.60% 264
Through a search engine 15.90% 170
Other (please specify) 8.40% 90
answered 1072
question
skipped 261
question

13. Answer Strongly agree Agree Slightly Strongly Don't know Rating Average Response
Options disagree disagree Count
It is easy to find 247 408 167 31 64 2.19 917
the Collection
database
online within
the British
Museum
website
The general 199 549 107 13 49 2.09 917
design and
layout of the
Collection
database
online is
appropriate
The Collection 190 449 190 35 53 2.25 917
database
online is easy
to navigate
I am likely to 645 235 11 3 23 1.39 917
visit the
Collection
database
online again
It is an effective 418 375 66 13 45 1.79 917
way to search
for objects of
interest
There should 196 417 153 33 118 2.41 917
be links to
physical
location of
objects

14. What improvements would you like to see? Response Response
Percent Count
Improved search facilities 31.90% 342
More images 67.60% 725
More detailed records 37.10% 398
More objects 31.30% 336
Audio/video 4.70% 50
Other (please specify) 11.80% 127
Other: rear and 360 degree views of objects, zoomable images, simpler way to receive images (fewer steps),
being able to search by acquisition date, and making the COL search more prominent on the main homepage

15. How has the research helped us?
• Open-ended questions - honest
opinions
• Ammunition for user-centred re-design
– going live in February / March 2013
– Making search easier
– Larger images
– Rentention of medium-resolution image
service

16. What were the limitations?
• Self-selecting
• Disconnect between survey and
Google Analytics data

17. One Question Survey
15 November – 11 January 2013
• “Help us improve our site. What did you
come to our site today to do?”
• Selection triggers a Google Analytics
event that records their selection.
• Allows us to segment our traffic
accordingly
• .

18. One Question Survey: responses
• .Plan a visit to the museum
• Find specific information for research
or professional reasons
• Find specific information for personal
reasons
• Engage in casual browsing without
looking for something specific
• .Make a booking or purchase

20. Interesting....
• Compare the 29% of respondents who
identify themselves as “professional
researchers” with the 8.5% whose visit
included the Collection Online.

21. Professional Researchers
Segment Respondents Sitewide
Visits 9,158 31,776 2m
(0.45%) (1.56%)
Av. pages 8.04 6.54 4.38
per visit
Av. visit 08:40 06.33 02:43
duration

22. One Question Survey
• Around a dozen museums, galleries, and
other arts venues did the same thing at
the same time....
• Culture24 Let’s Get Real Phase 2
http://weareculture24.org.uk/projects/action-research/

23. Thanks
• To Melissa, Clare and Vera
• Everyone in the Documentation, IS and Web
teams, for their work on the re-design
• To every curator since the 1970s who has
entered data into the database...
Any questions
mcock@britishmuseum.org
@matthewcock