Museum web design

We were talking about our stomach last week. Today we are going to think about our mind. I like visiting museums. When I am going to go there I have to check the time, place, exhibitions, price and other important information for visitors. When I am just looking for the museum I want to read about it, to have a look at showpieces, to see interior etc. If I am making some research I need contact with a museum administration. Some entertainments have to be on site for children who are going to visit it. So, lets have a look at Bergen museums web site to check how all these are realized.

The main page is decorated with few colors and it is good because design has to be light. There is cool logotype in the header and minimalistic “Bergen city museum”. I like a branding like this. The site is not adaptive and there is huge empty space in the right part of it. The slider consists with many small pictures and it is bad decision because they are not readable and can’t give the inspiration to visitors.

The article header has to be designed with other font and size because it is not enough markable. Site elements are not aligned. Here are a lot of ugly gaps between them. The main picture has to be wider. The margins are not symmetric. Have a look at the right column where text “Stølsavdelingen på Fanafjellet” comes to the border of the padding. The date is in disgusting black frame.


 
The right column’s exhibitions ads have very small pictures to inspire people visit them.

How it can be. We aligned all elements, deleted extradecor, made “Activities” more united and highlighted “Current exhibitions”.

The page of each museum is good organized. Here is asymmetrical design and right order of information for better perception (from top left to bottom right). It is hard to read contacts, prices and opening hours, because they are not marked with icons. I would like to install phone, clock and money pictography here. The links are not translated into English in the bottom of the page so I don’t know what it is.

Here is a big mistake on the “Experiences” page. The link comes to the empty page with other two links. This is really bad. I would make submenu in “Experiences” to drive people directly to what they want. There is the same mistake on “Information” page.

The information on “Opening hours” is bad organized. People percept pictures better than text. So each museum has to be marked with some picture to simplify visitor’s search. They have to find any museum in a moment without reading the text.

There is an useful page “Find your way to the museum”. Visitors can choose the museum and look at the map but the map is small. I don’t know why it is so small because there is a lot of empty space on the page. The map is not linked with Google maps and you can find a place but you can’t find THE WAY as it is written on the page header. The link “Find your way to the museum” has to be on each museum page but there is not.



The web site has very low usability. The menu doesn’t represent all pages. The first page has some parts of branding (logotype, few colors) but visitors don’t feel the museum mood there. Events advertisements are bad organized and decorated. Here is no inspiration for me or my son. Here is just bad organized information.

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Museum web design, 2014