Great museum websites

[bunn]

Does anyone have any opinions on great museum websites that you have run across recently?  If so, what struck you as good about 'em?  I'm on the hunt for ideas.

I do like the Ashmolean one - even if I'm not 100% convinced by the slideshow, the way they get a lot of good points for the museum onto the homepage without it looking cluttered is very nice.

Comments

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

No opinions on museum websites, except that the Winchcome Folk & Police Museum one is an excellent example of how to get a punchy message about a fantastic museum across even in a very simple site*.

But the new HMRC one is completely rubbish. It used to have information in it, and allowed you do do stuff. Now it's a glossy brochure that you can flick through, but all the actually useful bits are hidden away. If it were a museum website it might be quite good, but it's not and it's not. Grump :-(



*I am contractually obliged to write this

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I can think of some bad ones. On one I visited recently (not a musuem, but similar) the front page wanted you to click either "Explore," "Enjoy", "Discover!" or words to that effect. There were four of them, they were the only options, and I had no idea what on earth they meant in practical terms, and no idea which section would include what I actually wanted: i.e. the opening times.

A surprising number of tourist attraction sites make you work very hard indeed to find out where they are and when they're open, although I'd imagine that most visitors to the site are there for such practical information.

I remember being frustrated by the Corinium Musuem's website (argh, why can't I type "museum"?) because it didn't include a brief introduction explaining what sort of museum it actually was. I knew it contained Romans, but how many Romans? Did it also contain other things? I couldn't find any sort of brief overview.

I guess it depends on whether it's an Important Museum with Important Artefacts that scholars in far-off countries will want to be able to study virtually, or a little local museum where this isn't really an issue, and their main concern is to raise their profile as a local attraction.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh, the mystery meat navigation. It's been a joke for so many years, I'm amazed people still create it thinking that they are being innovative.

I agree, opening times and Where Are We are vital - that's one of the things I liked about the Ashmolean site, that bar right across the middle that manages to communicate all those things in about 30 pixels of vertical space.

It's a local museum, but personally I tend to the opinion that the split between 'local tourist attraction' and 'Important Museum' is a false one.

Important Museums have more stuff, but a local museum will very likely still have collections of importance to a specific visitor: I think Importance tends to be in the eye of the beholder (OK, maybe not sodding Victorian flat-irons...)

I get very annoyed when I'm trying to find more about a Thing, and all I can find is 'Thing is on display in our Oddleston Gallery from 10am to 3pm' and a postage-stamp-size photo, when the Oddleston gallery is a 7-hour drive away, or even worse, a 10 hour flight. Grrrrr.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think it is fair to say that all the websites I create fall somewhere between Winchcombe Folk & Police Museum, and HMRC. :-DDD

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I guess so. I guess the distinction is whether your item is unique or remarkable in some other way, or if it's just another example of a mass-produced Victorian flat-iron, identical to hundreds of others in museums around the world. Some local museums, such as those associated with an archaelogical site, might have a lot of the former. (If they've been allowed to keep them. I get grumpy when I go to Oddlestone Gallery, only to find that the famous Oddlestone Grail isn't actually there, but lives in London.) Others, such as those focused on early 20th century daily life, would have more of the latter.

"Is there a tea shop?" Another question that needs to be answered in a very prominent position. :-)

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

OH BOY I HAVE SO MANY OPINIONS ABOUT THIS. Um, but I have to run out the door, will try to remember to message you later.

[island-of-reil.livejournal.com]

I rather liked that of the Geffrye (http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/), which I visited last November. Lots of white space to frame the pretty photos.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!

I would very much like to hear the opinions!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh that is good. Excellent use of space, and easy to scan for the important details. Not sure about the 'kids zone' but I like the way the information is categorised and labelled in general.

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com
Home page is full of relevant stuff, but not too busy, and not a scroll wheel marathon.
All the important stuff top left under a box labelled "Planning your Visit"
And the further you move along those boxes to the right, the more detailed the information gets.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I like the way they've got it all on one screen, but I wonder if that small font size is an issue for some readers.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Definitely. Way too many Important Objects seem to get moved to London by default. It's strange, because if they stayed in Oddleston, they'd be The. Important. Thing of Oddleston! whereas in London they often seem to end up tucked away in a box at least part time, because London is so packed with important objects.

Archaeological stuff is so much more meaningful if it stays local anyway. I was looking for records of pre-Norman silver jewellery recently, and surely, in an area where the rocks are partly MADE of silver, with a 2000+ year history of silver mining there must be some stuff made from the results? But finding it is hard. There are some gold things, because people think gold is more important.

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

Ahh.
So I am vision impaired so have the accessibility settings on my computers all set to make life easier.
So I didn't notice that the fonts were small, because the site didn't ignore my accessability settings because it thinks it knows best. - that is one of my biggest pet hates. I even occasionally run across sites that won't let you zoom in!!! Ridiculous!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That annoys me too, although I think it's become a bit less common now that everyone is using different devices and browsers.

When a site owner was in a situation where everyone (he knew) was using more or less the same browser and screen resolution, it was really hard to convince them that there were people looking at the same website and unable to read it without upping the font size. :-/