My Role
I provided creative leadership and strategic direction for the user experience and visual design of the site, overseeing planning and design sprints to ensure user research served as the foundation for the visual and backend development. My role included direction to the in house Design Studio team and an outside agency.
The Opportunity
The previous iteration of sfmoma.org was a decade old, and its approach to content—and its outdated backend system—no longer supported the institution ideologically or organizationally. Having just finalized the design of the museum’s new visual identity, we were eager to translate our brand concepts, such as “welcoming,” “open,” and “surprising,” into the digital space.
Results
The redesign of sfmoma.org increased online visitorship from three to five million views in the year following its launch. Read more about the design of the website here.
Research + Discovery
After personas were identified and insights gleaned through research and discovery, we created visitor journey maps that provided focus on the main goal: create an online experience to motivate onsite visits while inspiring visitors to explore the digital offerings more deeply.
Methodology
A set of guiding principles developed out of a rigorous iterative process and served as the basis for what would eventually become the user interface.
The visually dynamic program of the museum takes center stage
Translate the concept of openness into an approach that provides clarity and focus
Present varying types of content sequentially to provide multiple perspectives while allowing the viewer to focus fully on
whatever most interests him or her
Assume that visitors will scroll, given the evolution of the web and the pervasiveness of mobile platforms
Maintain a play between peace and energy
Offer multiple paths of discovery without being overwhelming
And, because we felt like it: make the search box REALLY big
Outcome
The design and content of our Artwork pages exemplifies the museum’s obsession with objects and the people who make them. These pages display artwork images at a size that was previously impossible, as well as jumping-off points to carefully selected content. This is just one example of how online visitors experience our collection in a way that is parallel to, but very different from, a visit to the physical galleries. This approach also helps mitigate what we’ve come to call the “tyranny of the related,” which can easily fatigue users.
And what better way to communicate the breadth of our content than through a full-screen, filterable Search? We created a robust filtering system that allows the visitor to drill down not only by categories such as “artists” or “exhibitions” but also by decade, color, medium, and size. As you refine your search with filters, you will see a sentence progressively written out at the top of the page that reflects the criteria of your advanced search.AT the time of launch, this was the first museum site to offer this level of search.