Susan Jones offers some key criteria for assessing how well your gallery’s website is meeting users’ needs and takes a look at some of the best.
Across the arts, digital expression now forms an integral part of mainstream art practice and web platforms have largely replaced promotional brochures and adverts. Interaction between publicly-funded galleries and what could be described as their ‘audiences’ extends way beyond physical visits. Where previously galleries just needed to have a nice looking website, today it’s all about being optimised for mobile and being active in social media too. Here, I provide a commentary on the user experience by sampling selected gallery websites, highlighting good examples, and at the end suggesting some areas for improvement.
Since this is my personal assessment of a sample of publicly-funded UK based galleries, I’ve reduced the commonly-used user experience quality criteria. Similarly, given publicly-funded arts websites can’t hope to keep pace with the speed of new technologies adopted by commercial websites, I’ve not focused on whether any site’s design is ‘of the moment’. If you’re reading this, do ask yourself, how well does your gallery website score on the following criteria... Keep reading on Interpretation Matters!
Across the arts, digital expression now forms an integral part of mainstream art practice and web platforms have largely replaced promotional brochures and adverts. Interaction between publicly-funded galleries and what could be described as their ‘audiences’ extends way beyond physical visits. Where previously galleries just needed to have a nice looking website, today it’s all about being optimised for mobile and being active in social media too. Here, I provide a commentary on the user experience by sampling selected gallery websites, highlighting good examples, and at the end suggesting some areas for improvement.
Since this is my personal assessment of a sample of publicly-funded UK based galleries, I’ve reduced the commonly-used user experience quality criteria. Similarly, given publicly-funded arts websites can’t hope to keep pace with the speed of new technologies adopted by commercial websites, I’ve not focused on whether any site’s design is ‘of the moment’. If you’re reading this, do ask yourself, how well does your gallery website score on the following criteria... Keep reading on Interpretation Matters!