Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to Strategic Plan for the Delaware Museum of Natural History Website
Similar to Strategic Plan for the Delaware Museum of Natural History Website (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Strategic Plan for the Delaware Museum of Natural History Website
- 1. Strategic Plan for the Delaware Museum of Natural History’s Website Kristina Demou COMM364
- 2. Introduction Senior at UD, Media Communications Major with Interactive Media & Art Minors Communications New Media Intern at Delaware Museum of Natural History (DMNH) Photo, Video, Website Design
- 3. Research Literature review of articles about museums in the digital space Collect & prioritize strategies to implement
- 4. Analytics Key demographic Browsing behaviors Most frequented pages Mobile v. Desktop Browsing period
- 5. Analytics Majority female (72%) Ages 25-44 (mothers)
- 6. Analytics Home page and Hours, Directions, & Admission page most frequently visited
- 7. Analytics Mobile outranks Desktop Differences in browsing behavior Mobile – on the go Desktop – sit and browse
- 8. Analytics Most people browse for 10 seconds 1-3 minutes second most popular Not engaging enough
- 9. Strategy Prioritize changes – be realistic Home page, hours & admission page Template for future changes
- 10. Strategy Re-organize and modify website design to improve aesthetic appeal & UX Gain more visitors on website
- 11. Home Page - Visual
- 12. Hours & Admission Page - Visual
- 13. Thank You Delaware Museum of Natural History Jennifer Acord University of Delaware
Editor's Notes
- My name is Kristina Demou and I am a senior Media Communication major at UD. This summer, I had the pleasure of interning with the Delaware Museum of Natural History in Wilmington, focusing on new media projects such as photo, video, and website design. For my final project, I researched the relationship between museums and the digital space, focusing on website design techniques and methods to improve user experience. I also analyzed the museum’s Google Analytics to understand more about our website’s visitors and what they were most interested in on the site, as well as how long they spent on it. I found some room for improvement and sketched out a plan to implement changes that would improve the ease of use and overall aesthetic appeal of the site.
- First, I did some research into the importance of a museum’s online presence and specific strategies to keep in mind when designing a museum website. The sources I used were all specific to a museum rather than just any online presence, so it definitely helped me refine the information I gathered and tailored it to my specific needs. I used these sources and their key points to shape my strategic plan and decide what features to focus on for the new design.
- I spent a great deal of time looking through all the data that our Google Analytics provides us with and took note of things like key demographic, browsing behavior, online vs. mobile, and top visited pages. Then I did an objective analysis of the current website design, jotting down anything that stood out to me as needing to be changed, whether to improve ease of access or just increase the aesthetic appeal. Since I was a new set of eyes approaching this website but I had the background knowledge of the website’s main visitor base and what they are interested in, I was able to pay attention to my very first impression of the website and use that as a guide to prioritize the suggested changes.
- As you can see, a majority of our website visitors are female, and fall into the 25-44 year old age bracket, so it can be concluded that many individuals visiting our website are mothers looking for activities for their children.
- Naturally, the home page is the most frequently visited page on the site as it is the landing page, and then coming in second most popular is the hours, directions and admission page, so those are the two pages I focused on for the sake of this project.
- When looking at what devices visitors use to browse our site, it was almost an even split between desktop and mobile. The mobile slightly outranks the desktop actually, and it is important to keep in mind the differences in browsing behavior between these two platforms. People browsing on mobile are on the go, and tend to be more in a rush for their information, so it is important to those people that the information is presented clearly and with ease of access. For those who like to browse on desktop, they tend to have more time and would be willing to sit and browse more, so it is important to provide pleasant aesthetics, a good UX, and some interactive content for those users to engage with and hold them on the site longer.
- Those browsing for the shorter amount of time are likely mobile browsers, just going to one page to get information they need, and the next bracket, the 1-3 minute range, indicates many users are willing to spend more time on the site. However, this is still a bit low and it would be encouraging to see that time go up more, which means we need to introduce more engaging content on the site for people to interact with.
- I had to keep reminding myself when I started formulating my strategy that I’m working with a limited amount of time and resources. I tried to focus on the main things that needed changing that I also knew I could execute within my remaining time at the museum. I focused on the design of the home page as well as the most popular page that people look for, hours and directions. From there, the changes I made can also serve as suggestions or a template to be followed when changing other pages in the future. But for the purposes of this project, I knew I would only be interning here through the end of the summer, so I had to be conscious not to bite off more than I can chew.
- My two main goals of my strategy are to re-organize and modify the website design to improve its aesthetic appeal and user experience, and to increase the traffic on the site. I have crafted a series of tactics to achieve these strategies, including suggestions for new and engaging content that can be added to the site.
- This is a look at the website’s new home page, which I designed, and it displays a more spread-out layout. The sliders at the top of the page will eventually be switched to video sliders that are more eye catching, and each section on the hope page now takes up more space and also catches the eye as opposed to the former layout that was a bit squished together. If you scroll down, you see the Museum’s story and a sidebar with the key information about hours and admission, then you see below that the events calendar with a list of upcoming events. Scrolling further, you can see the current exhibits listed across, with an eye catching image for each one and a brief preview of what it’s about, and users can click through if they want to read more about any particular exhibit. Finally, below that is a list of the most recent blog posts that users can click on to read about museum related happenings and share the link to the posts on their social media.
- This is a mockup of the proposed new design for the hours and admission page. It is not yet complete, so the original layout is still on the site right now, but for the sake of the presentation, this is what it looks like so far. The four blocks of information have been spread out and laid out in a vertical list rather than a four-square layout like before. Each section is distinctly blocked off with alternating colors to separate it from the next section. Also, the idea behind this page is to keep the design simpler than other pages simply because many people look to this page on mobile just to get the information they want and exit. Introducing any extra interactive content might serve as a distraction and take away from the ease of finding the key information on the page. More interactive content will be saved for other pages on the site, like blog posts or exhibit pages.
- Thank you to everyone who has welcomed me and worked with me at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, particularly Jennifer Acord, the museum’s Communications Director and my supervisor. Additionally, thank you to the University of Delaware for helping me thrive in this opportunity and giving me the necessary resources I need to succeed.