Inclusive & Accessible Custom Museum Website Design
Des Moines Art Center is a contemporary and modern art museum providing educational programming, permanent collections, exciting exhibitions and more to their community in Des Moines, Iowa. Ready to make their website propel their mission, Des Moines Art Center partnered with Landslide Creative to rethink and re-energize the museum’s online presence. Landslide Creative earned a Gold award for our Des Moines Art Center website design in the Muse Creative Awards!
Start with Strategic Planning
As a contemporary and modern art museum, Des Moines Art Center strives to be a welcoming and equitable cultural resource to ensure access to art for everyone. This means they have multiple audience needs to balance, from first-time visitors and art class participants to members, volunteers, corporate donors — and more!
We started with a comprehensive strategic planning phase to identify and prioritize the audiences and goals for the website redesign, which would guide our entire design and development process. Working with each museum department, we created website user journey maps for the unique audience profiles, outlining the priorities, concerns, key messaging and calls to action. A site map and wireframes helped everyone visualize the information architecture and navigation user interface.
User-Tested, Responsive UX Design
After completing the strategic planning, we began designing an accessible and mobile responsive user experience (UX) that would be easy-to-use for both website visitors and the website admin team.
A bold, colorful and photo-driven design matches the brand’s style guide and modern aesthetic, and gives visitors a sense of what to expect on-site. The colors double as a navigational aid.
We conducted remote user testing in two phases. First, we evaluated the information architecture, navigational structure and overall design to ensure the organization of information was intuitive, and that initial impressions of the design match the Art Center’s desired brand persona. When the staging site was ready, we tested a fully interactive version of the site, validating design decisions and making adjustments as needed based on tester feedback.
Flexible Website Management for Future Growth
Using our custom PageBuilderLS tool in WordPress, we equipped the Des Moines Art Center team with an extremely flexible website that simplifies content management for their team, allowing them to add, edit, remove and rearrange content, exhibitions, collections, and resources on any page at any time.
With a streamlined system, the Des Moines Art Center team can now plan for the future of their museum knowing their website will continue to work for them as they grow and create opportunities for transformative experiences through art.
Features to Functionality to Drive the Art Center’s Mission
Tessitura API Integration
We developed an API integration with Tessitura, an industry-leading software system for museum and nonprofit management. This integration creates a more efficient admin experience.
Collections Management API Integration
We also configured an API integration with the museum’s collection management software, eMuseum by Gallery Systems, allowing for art from the permanent collection to be featured throughout the site.
Accessible Design & Development
The website is designed and developed according to WCAG 2.1 accessibility guidelines for ADA compliance, supporting the Art Center’s goal to provide access to art for everyone.
Interactive Class Finder
The museum offers a wide selection of studio art classes. The API integration with Tessitura allowed us to build a seamless UX for visitors to browse and register for classes from the site.
Blog & Resource Library
A full-featured blog and resource library houses supplemental content for art lovers and educators. It supports a variety of media formats, and posts can be mapped to relevant pages to encourage deeper engagement.
Exhibition Display & Archive
The rotating art exhibitions are a major draw to the museum. We designed and developed an interactive module to feature current and upcoming exhibitions on the homepage, as well as a system for archiving past exhibits with related resources.
Start Your Custom Website Project
Let’s talk about how we can partner to bring your vision to life. Reach out to learn more and get started.