Abstract
This project aimed to increase visitation of young adults at the Merchant's House Museum, a historic house museum built in 1832. The focus was on optimizing the museum's website for mobile use and improving its information architecture. To better understand young adult visitors' needs and expectations, we conducted 8 interviews with individuals aged 18-35 who visit house or historical museums at least twice a month. The findings were analyzed using Affinity Diagramming. A competitor analysis of 9 other museums provided insights into effective website features. We employed multiple testing methods, including card sorting (both moderated and unmoderated) to improve site structure, and tree testing to assess the effectiveness of the new information architecture. Our improvements focused on the navigation bar, tours and ticket options, homepage, and ticket flow. These changes aimed to enhance user experience and make the website more appealing to the target audience.
Team
Smridhi Gupta
Hugo He
Yuye Lin
Lori Chiang
Mentor
Julie Turgeon
Duration
August - December 2023
Client
Case study on - Merchant's House Museum
The Merchant's House Musem
The Merchant's House Museum is a historic house museum built in 1832.
It is a time capsule of the lives of a wealthy 19th century family, complete with original furnishings, clothing, books and artwork.
The preserved interiors of the Merchant's House Museum
The Brief
To increase visitation of young adults at the Merchant's House Museum.
With a key focus on:
1. Optimizing the website for mobile use.
2. Addressing the site's information architecture.
Jump to Final Designs
Current Website
Current Merchant's House Museum website
"What do you think when you look at this website?
Who do you think it's for?"
Asked our professor.
The common reply was:
"Old people"
So,
How do we make a house museum (website) attractive to young adults?
What we achieved:
An overall improved Information Architecture
A cohesive Design language
Optimized mobile use
Improved Website for Merchant's House Museum
Mobile optimized, new design for the Merchant's House Museum
First -
What do visitors want?
We conducted a total of 8 interviews with people between the ages of 18-35 years and who visit house or historical museums at least twice a month.
This enabled us to get a better understanding of the expectations, frustrations and contexts of the users. We employed the process of Affinity Diagraming to analyze the data.
The following are our findings:
Affinity Diagramming process - analyzing all the information received through the interviews
1. Ticket, exhibition & event information to plan a visit
Our first finding was that users are predominantly searching for ticket, exhibition & event information to plan a visit.
"I like to read a little bit about the exhibition and in general, like what's going on - what are the upcoming events and also if they need in a specific ticket. I like to plan ahead."
said one interviewee
87.5%
of users look for ticket information when deciding to visit a museum.
100%
of users expressed an interest in new exhibitions
62.5%
of users expressed an interest in special events
Information about the museum
The Merchant's House Museum is a historic house museum built in 1832. It is a time capsule of the lives of a wealthy 19th century family, complete with original furnishings, clothing, books and artwork.
- This information took over 2 minutes to find on the website. That is enough time for a user to close the tab.
"I think some (websites) don't have that much information so I think that can be a problem that you don't even know what are you really looking for in the museum."
Said one interviewee
To get a better idea of what users want
and are used to, our next question was:
What are other museums doing
(right)?
We conducted a competitor analysis, using 9 other house and historical museums. Using the metrics of good, neutral or poor for characteristics such as homepage, appearance, organization, navigation, mobile friendliness, map & directions and exhibitions & events.
Competitor analysis on Navigation Systems and our findings
Here's what we found:
The Homepage addresses user needs by being informative
Example - The Met Museum website does a great job of introducing users to the museum.
"I like to read a little bit about the exhibition and in general, like what's going on "
Global navigation should be concise, clear and easy to understand
Example - The New Museum website has overall clear labels that are easy for users to understand.
(Except "NEW INC")
3. Organization of the information should be convenient and accessible
Example - The Jewish Heritage Museum has "membership" and "buy tickets" in the main navigation. Whereas the directions fall lower on the homepage organization.
Using visually appealing, consistent design language can stimulate interest
Example - The Brooklyn Museum has a consistent and visually appealing design language.
We turned our focus towards improving the information architecture of the website.
First,
we conducted a card sorting activity. Both moderated and unmoderated to understand users better. We employed the use of 53 cards, taken from information on the website.
Excerpts from the findings of the card sorting activity
We made a few key decisions and now it was time to test the information architecture. We did this using the generative research method of tree testing. Our test involved a total of 8 tests, each drafted to address a different user need.
Excerpt from the tree testing and example of how it was used to iterate the information architecture.
We sought to address the following:
1. Navigation bar
2. Tours and ticket options
3. Homepage
4. Ticket flow
Before:
After:
Decisions:
a) Removing vague titles such as "Ghosts" and "The House"
"Ghosts' refers to the paranormal research and walking tour offered at the museum. This can be confusing for users. It is also referred to as a Special Event. Therefore, it has been added into the "Events" tab.
b) Adding "Exhibition & Collection"
Most users said they visit a museum website for the purpose of finding their exhibitions. As a house museum, the Merchant's House Museum's permanent collection is their permanent exhibition. When not grouped separately, they were also grouped together by 30% of visitors in a card sorting activity.
c) Changing "Support" to "Join & Support"
Both Join and support are action based. In the card sorting activity some users grouped membership and volunteer/internship together.
*more testing is required here
Tours and ticket options
Before:
After:
Decisions:
- Addition of a filter on the "Book A Tour" page, nested under "Visit"
Overlapping tour categories make users feel confused.
Homepage
Desktop
Before:
The Merchant's House Museum website design
After:
Redesigned web page with improved information architecture
Mobile
Before:
The original website - not optimized for mobile use
After:
Redesigned responsive webpage for phone use
Ticket flow
On the earlier iteration of the website, the ticket flows aren't consistent and require either an external portal or an email.
We sought to design a flow that can be used for all tour and ticket options.
Before:
The ticketing process on the original website
After:
The redesigned ticketing process
Final thoughts:
Through the course of the project, the Merchant's House Museum website became more usable & organized.
The new website addresses the expectations, challenges and contexts that visitors are influenced by. We have attempted to redesign using research and our own judgement.
There can always be more testing conducted on our current prototype to make the usability of the product even better.
These improvements are expected to boost website visitation and, ultimately, encourage more young adults to explore the rich history of the Merchant's House Museum. Future efforts can build on these enhancements by continuing to monitor user feedback and making iterative updates to further align with visitor preferences.