If I Was Asked to Redesign the Design Museum Website

Preface: This post was originally in the form of a presentation about the future of museums online, given at the Society of Museum Archaeologists Conference 2009.

The Popularity of Museums

Museums and Galleries are popular. Very popular. They make up 8 of the top 10 visitor attractions in the UK, and are apparently more popular than Premier League football matches in the North West of England.

Yet online, the most popular Museum/Gallery website – the Tate – is only the 1,690^th most popular website for UK web users (according to Alexa at time of checking). And it’s not even a case of being beaten by marketing dollars or brand awareness: at 559^th is onemanga.com, an online manga (Japanese comic) resource set up by a group of friends, and at almost equal ranking to the Tate, at 1722^nd, is the awfully ugly and uninspired brainyquote.com.

The Make-Up of a Museum Website

Why are museum websites not more popular? Take a look at the main navigation of any major museum website and you’re likely to see the same thing: Visitor Information, What’s On, Exhibitions, Collections, Research, Learning, Shopping, and Membership. There’s nothing particularly new or exciting about these; it’s mostly the same information that was online 15 years ago on the same websites, but with a nicer design.

Lots of attention, and therefore resource, is usually focussed on getting the collections online. This typically involves complex integration work (at an average cost of between £25,000 and £100,000), and attracts between 2.5% and 15% of the website traffic.

But is it worth it? I would argue that these amazing online collections are not merely a distraction but a hindrance, because of the constant attention and effort they demand, with seemingly little benefit.

Let me qualify that with a story.

Your Online Collection Is Worthless To Me

I recently started a history-tinged blog with a group of friends, called The Januarist. My post topics have included modernist architecture, classic industrial design, inventions, Victorian patents, past trends of newspapers and other subjects that perfectly fit the information, themes and objects of museums.

Yet throughout the writing of these posts, I have used – and therefore referenced – exactly zero museum web pages. I have found more comprehensive information and imagery on other websites, which importantly are also covered by relevant Creative Commons licenses. These allow me to use and modify the content for my own purposes, on the condition that I attribute the original source - which is fine with me. Every museum web page about an object tells me the exact opposite: this is our copyright, so don’t even think about using it.

That’s fine: I’ll just get it elsewhere, thanks very much.

(Note: this isn’t a criticism of the two specific museums I show above; in fact, to the contrary: I use these in my examples because they offer some of the best online collection access.)

So, with less information about each object, few opportunities for me to contribute additional information, and – most importantly – no immediate rights to use any of the information, I can’t tell who these online collections are for. What problem are they solving?

The World is Changing

As with similar cultural sectors - music, film, journalism, publishing - the cultural heritage sector needs to be aware of the substantial changes underway; they must significantly adapt to remain relevant in an online world, especially as they are increasingly positioning themselves as content providers.

Let’s take a look at some of the relevant changes afoot.

As the availability – and accessibility – of pirated material continues to rise (i.e. accessibility means that my mum would be able to download the latest blockbuster movie as easily as she can search Google), it is inevitable that our perceived value of digital content will continue to decline.

As connection speeds and availability increase, it is inevitable that our reliance on web applications will increase, and therefore their value, both monetarily and culturally.

Mobile is big business, and is rapidly becoming our primary device for accessing the internet.

Not so long ago, the world was made up of many large corporations, and relatively few people worked solo or freelance. The Internet has totally flipped this on its head; there are now increasing numbers of small companies and lone entrepreneurs successfully making a living, supported by fewer big ‘platform’ providers (like Amazon and Google). This trend will only continue as the reach and opportunity of the Internet expands.

Probable Implications for Museums

Firstly, lower digital content value + less big business = less image licensing. Image licensing revenue is often the excuse for not applying a more liberal license to online images; with this revenue stream likely to decline, should museums not be more strategic about the licensing of their images (e.g. by applying a non-commercial, by-attribution Creative Commons license, to help spread-the-word)? Use images to market and drive traffic to your site, rather than as an ever-declining revenue stream.

Secondly, lower digital content value + higher app value + higher mobile usage = demand/resource shift from content to service provision. Most museums currently focus on online content creation (authors, editors, educators) rather than online services (developers, user experience experts). If the value of the former is declining, and the latter increasing, would it be strategic to consider reversing (or balancing) this ratio; i.e. grow the internal web-development team?

Thirdly, and most importantly, more small business = more competition. The audience of any museum is a mass of niche communities, which are being increasingly better-served elsewhere.

For example, I’m a ‘member’ of multiple communities that the Design Museum appeals to; one specific example might be: Design > Industrial Design > German Industrial Design > Braun > Audio/Visual Product Design > Dieter Rams Design.

Not a Criticism

At this point, I should make it clear that this is not a criticism of the teams behind museum websites. Having worked with these teams, and on these very museum websites, for over eight years, I am acutely aware of their difficult situation.

Museums are passionate about fulfilling the needs of their online visitors, but are unfortunately positioned in a ‘limbo’ like environment where they have enough public money to be held accountable, but not enough public money to be able to take any risks. I don’t envy their situation: they are being asked to adapt but not being given the relevant resource or freedom to do so.

How Do Museums Remain Relevant?

We should start with a definition of relevance. For the purposes of this article, let’s define it as:

• offering a relevant service…
• in the relevant location…
• at a relevant cost.

If we apply this to current museum offerings (online and offline), we generate a matrix that might look like the following:

Note that none of these are inherently better than the other e.g. ‘at cost’ is more relevant to me than ‘free’ if I’m looking for a luxury hotel for the weekend.

Providing ‘access’ to the collection doesn’t translate online (the in-museum visit to see the collection is an ‘experience’ that can’t be replicated online), and we’ve previously argued that content (which might include research, educational, narrative, etc.), data and media are decreasing in value, so the question is: what services should museums be offering to remain relevant?

Here’s my suggestion, and the crux of this article:

Museums should facilitate, encourage and support the self-organisation of the niche communities that they inherently represent.

These communities might be by subject (as per my industrial design example earlier), demographic (age, sex, class, education, marital status), locality (from international to hyper-local), or any mix of these.

Even the smallest museum will represent a surprising number of niche communities. The Button Museum in the small town of Ross-on-Wye might represent Textile artists, women over 60 (apologies for blatant stereotype), 30-something nostalgic hipsters, WW1 collectors, Art students, Ross-on-Wye residents, fashion designers, and so on.

My proposition is that each museum should be there to act as a hub for these communities to network, communicate and create new value (many museums may already feel that they provide this, yet few demonstrate it online).

Why?

• The Collection. A museum’s collection will inherently define the communities attracted to the museum, and can provide a focal point for discussions, events, and other community activities.
• Physical Space. Communities often require a safe, affordable space in which to meet and perform activities/events. Many museums could provide this for their communities.
• Expertise. Museums could make their in-house experts available to the communities, to help spread knowledge and guide discussions.
• Neutrality. A community is more likely to accept and value a leader and facilitator that has no obvious political leanings or ulterior motives.
• Reciprocal Benefits. The museum will gain significant strategic and monetary value from organising these communities; I’ll discuss some specific examples in the next section.

“If I Was Asked to Re-Design the Design Museum website…”

Given my assertion that museums should be focused on their communities, here’s how I’d update the Design Museum website to reflect this strategy. I’ve chosen the Design Museum only because of my passion for Design, not to make any kind of statement about their current website.

Step 1 – Update the website; from a Me-seum to a You-seum

Museums are currently all about ‘me, me, me’ (i.e. this is what I have to show you). Can you remember the last time you visited a museum and they showed much interest in what you knew or thought about an object? In sales training, one of the first things you’re taught is to mention ‘you’ (the customer) three times as often as ‘we’ (the company making the pitch).

If we’re to make our site community-focused, we need to update it so that it’s more focussed on the visitor and their interactions (posting in forums, creating groups, sharing media, organising events). We also want to make this site the hub for our communities (industry news and events), so we’ll need to incorporate information that they need.

These elements will of course not exist in isolation, but will be mixed throughout the website: the latest exhibition will link to related events in the area and relevant forum posts; a group that users set-up for ‘ergonomic furniture’ will feature the relevant objects from the collection and the latest industrial furniture news.

This website re-design won’t be cheap, though: I’d imagine spending no less than £100,000 on it, with a good chunk of that on User Experience design. On top of that, you’re probably going to want at least another person’s full-time salary for the first-year as an online community manager: community building requires a lot of time and energy.

Although this could be seen as a lot of money, it is a serious strategic investment in what is probably the museum’s most important future platform. Museums spend millions of pounds on physical building extensions; why not spend a relatively small amount on something that could be as (or more) important?

Step 2 – Engage The Community

No matter how much ‘real world’ reputation you have, online you have to work for every eyeball. So once the tools have been built for the community, the next step is to engage and attract them. Note that when I use the term ‘engage’, I mean entering into genuine, knowledgeable discussions with people, NOT randomly spamming.

Using the Gary Vaynerchuck model, this is all about creating great content, being genuinely passionate, reaching out, and being persistent. Steps would include:

• Using Twitter Search to engage with Twitter users who talk about relevant design subjects.
• Similarly, use a Blog Search to find people who are posting relevant blog posts, and engage with these people (and their readers) through their comments.
• Engaging with existing relevant communities on Flickr, YouTube and Facebook.

Step 3 – Support The Community

Once the community has gained some traction, the priority needs to shift to supporting them:

• Provide and maintain the tools that allow them to self-organise (create groups/forums/events).
• Help with event organisation.
• Moderate the forums.
• Offer the museum physical ‘space’, where appropriate.
• Give access to experts; allow curators to freely contribute.
• Make recommendations (for reading, events, training, etc).
• Allow the users to import and promote their content.

Step 4 – Reap The Rewards

What would the museum get out of this? Apart from immeasurable brand-value benefits, we might expect to see:

• Decreased ongoing costs: let the community manage the industry news section, possibly contribute to the ‘Design Museum’ section, and eventually become self-moderating.
• Increased online exposure: which has search engine optimisation benefits.
• Increased membership: your community will have greater exposure to your events and exhibitions, and with a greater sense of loyalty, membership numbers should increase.
• Increased shop sales: the design of the site will ensure that relevant products are featured alongside discussions and events, which should drive sales.
• Customer intelligence: we’d know, better than ever before, what our communities wanted, needed and expected).
• Licensing revenue: once the platform is proven, we could license the community software/model to other large museums (for a small amount, e.g. £10,000, that is much less than their cost of development would be. This would allow the museum to eventually recoup the initial outlay, and make the software available gratis to smaller museums.

Summary

I have questioned the purpose of current online museums collections, given their current licensing difficulties and restrictions. In an attempt to offer an alternative online strategy, I have suggested that museum websites should focus on communities, which could allow museums and galleries to increase their relevance in an ever-digital age. [Ignore: 7NRUCUTM69BZ]