Museums
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California Missions microsite for The Huntington Library
I’m happy to report the launch of Exploring the California Missions, a website I designed and developed for The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Using the lens of California Mission history, Exploring the California Missions presents a suite of lessons intended to help teachers and fourth grade students develop the critical skills needed to work with primary sources. The website was produced in conjunction with the exhibit Junípero Serra and the Legacies of the California Missions.
Located in San Marino, California, The Huntington is a collections-based research and educational institution serving scholars and the general public.
The website is built on WordPress, with the classroom presentations presented using SlideShare. This project was created in association with Think ROTH Projects and in collaboration with a cross-departmental team from The Huntington.
Membership microsite for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
I’ve been working with the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History to develop a series of low-tech, low-cost strategies and systems to track, celebrate, and act on personal interactions with visitors.
“Like many small museums, the MAH cannot afford expensive ticketing or membership software systems,” says Executive Director Nina Simon. “We have very high ability to form relationships with visitors, but low ability to capitalize on those interactions.”
One of the initiatives we’ve undertaken to address this discrepancy was the creation a new online membership storefront that integrates with the Museum’s website, other membership materials, and philosophy. I designed and developed the site in close collaboration with Museum staff, beginning with a visit to the MAH.
“We were fortunate to have Marty in our office as we outlined how the site would look and function, and he literally cut and collaged together our existing printed membership materials to build an online system that looked and felt the same as our existing paper system. He’s created a less daunting transition for our members, who are accustomed to those materials.”
— Karen Bush, Membership Director
Located in downtown Santa Cruz, California, The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History is a community-centered origination whose vision is to become a thriving, central gathering place where local residents and visitors have the opportunity to experience art, history, ideas, and culture.
The website is built on WordPress, using the Gravity Forms plugin.
WordPress migration for the Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles
The Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles wanted a Content Management System, so that non-technical staff could make changes on their own. And, based on the experience using it for the Origins site, they wanted WordPress. So that’s exactly what we did!
Overall, this work was about making life easier for CAM staff. We left the visual design and layout largely the same as it was — this was not a full-scale website redesign — but did refactor aspects of the HTML and CSS to simplify content management, such as taking styles and classes out of the content where possible.
The one area we did redesign, however, was the home page. The previous layout was designed to be “above the fold,” which constrained the amount of information it could present. Our redesign increases the diversity and amount of information available.
Symbolically housed in the oldest and last surviving structure of Los Angeles’ original Chinatown, the Chinese American Museum strives to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of America’s diverse heritage and the continuing contributions of Chinese Americans.
The Chinese American Museum website is hosted by Media Temple.
Goshka Macuga microsites for the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
This post is a collaboration between Sarah Wambold and Marty Spellerberg. Sarah Wambold is a Denver-based project manager and documentary producer. Marty Spellerberg is an Austin-based interactive media designer/developer.
Goshka Macuga is the MCA Chicago’s 2013 Artist In Residence.
“Macuga’s work interweaves two strands that have helped define contemporary art in the last decade: artists’ increasing tendency toward historical and archival research and their growing interest in strategies of display and the dialogue between artistic and curatorial practice.”
— Dieter Roelstraete
Inspired by Hamburg Conversations on Art: Hamburg Comedy, a 1896 work German Jewish art historian Aby Warburg, Macuga’s residency project is to create a Chicago Comedy. But because the resulting work, likely to be a play, will not exist until the end of the term, the artist’s process is being documented and presented to the public as Preparatory Notes for a Chicago Comedy. Our team became involved as interactive media designers/developers.
With no artist on site—she’s in London—and no objects being produced in the early phases, how would museum visitors know there was, in fact, a residency taking place? We needed a physical manifestation or marker that would let the public know what was happening as it was happening.
In-Gallery iPad Kiosk
The artist was opposed to creating a object or an installation “as a placeholder,” so digital, with its ability to present a depth of information in a physically economical and engaging way, emerged as the best candidate. iPads as part of a title wall installation became the solution for a physical, onsite manifestation of the residency.
Early in the year, Macuga was joined by MCA Curator Dieter Roelstraete for a romp around the city, seeking to “excavate Chicago’s lesser-known histories, forgotten folktales, and best-kept secrets.” The material they generated became the basis for our presentation.
Since the artist’s notes were organized around places she visited around the city, we chose an interactive map interface. This provided an instantly relevant format: Onsite visitors are, by definition, present in Chicago and likely to relate to a map of the city. This also served to emphasize the project’s connection and relevance to the local community, a goal of the Museum’s residency program generally.
The technical solution was based on the technique demonstrated in Marty’s Integrating WordPress and Google Maps tutorial, which he previously used to create an in-gallery kiosk for the Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles.
Museum Website
We also wanted to put something online that could live-on once the residency itself is completed. We realized, over several discussions with the curator, that Macuga’s work would find its form in phases: Lateral research of canvassing Chicago; vertical research of deep dives at the Warburg Institute; production, likely to happen abroad; and a to-be-determined final presentation. The digital strategy would need to respond to each of these.
We recognized that the map interface would be inadequate for telling the rest of the story of the residency; as Macuga moved from research-based activities, some happening abroad, and into production, using a map to navigate the content would no longer make sense.
The Museum had a history of stand-alone project blogs, and we made the choice to continue that format in this case. The first thing we did was to consolidate the most recent blogs under a unified banner and feed, which improved the prospects for long-term maintenance, as well as providing added context for future researchers. But we also wanted to provide a unique feel specific to the here-and-now, so we designed a two-column landing page using the Packery layout library.
The project was driven by a core creative concept that came into view over a period of time, as the artist’s process revealed the characteristics of the artwork she is creating. By adopting an agile design and development methodology, our team was able to respond to the changing needs for the project mid-course. The result was a compelling, revealing and engaging presentation for Museum visitors both onsite and online.
Project Collaborators
Digital Team
Producer and Project Manager: Sarah Wambold
Designer and Developer: Marty Spellerberg
Content Coordinator: Marian Oman
Residency Team
Project Manager: Erika Hanner
Curator: Dieter Roelstraete
Content Creators: Michelle Puetz, Dieter Roelstraete, and Goshka Macuga
Website for the Santa Cruz MAH’s Pop Up Museum
A Pop Up Museum is a of temporary exhibit created by the people who show up to participate. It works by choosing a theme and venue and then inviting people to bring an object on-topic to share. The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History hosts Pop Up Museums throughout Santa Cruz County in partnership with community organizations, businesses, and schools.
Website designed and developed by Marty Spellerberg. Lettering, logo and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb.
Migrating the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Exhibitions Website to WordPress
Working with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, we recently completed a redesign of the Exhibitions area of the Museum’s website. The project was a collaboration between Spellerberg Associates and staff at the MCA.
On the front-end, we implemented a mobile-responsive design reflecting a contemporary interpretation of the Museum’s established visual identity. We also addressed elements of the navigation convention that had proved inconsistent and unclear to users. On the back-end, we moved from legacy CodeIgniter-powered infrastructure to WordPress.
Working with a live website and content set, it was important that the project be completed with continuity of service and minimal disruption to content editors. With this in mind, we adopted an iterative approach, with the migration taking place in two stages. First we moved the individual exhibition pages, one by one; second we moved the category archive pages.
Migrating the Exhibition Records
Exhibitions were created in WP as a custom post type. Knowing we had hundreds of records, we configured this type to be non-hierarchical, like Posts (hierarchical types, like Pages, run into performance problems with large sets). To match our data, three custom-field metaboxes were added the Edit screen: Start Date, End Date and Read Dates; other data was input into WP’s standard fields. Records were migrated manually, providing the opportunity to clean the content (remove dead links, etc) and update the accompanying images.
A “redirect” field was added to the legacy CodeIgniter CMS and was populated with the URL of the corresponding WordPress permalink. Using this data, the CodeIgniter templates redirected visitors from the legacy pages to the new, WordPress versions. In this way the migration was rolled-out incrementally, as records were completed.
Migrating the Exhibition Category Pages
Exhibition records were organized into a custom taxonomy called “Exhibition Categories,” which was used to generate the Past Exhibitions pages. During the first stage of the work, these taxonomy archives were redirected to the URLs of their CodeIgniter counterparts. Once the migration of the individual records was complete, the Exhibition Category templates were fully implemented and the redirect removed.
All exhibition records were filed in the appropriate “Past Exhibitions” category, even if the show had not yet completed. The taxonomy archive templates then used the Exhibition’s “End Date” custom field to filter out current and upcoming shows, displaying only those that had closed.
The last element was the Current and Upcoming Exhibitions pages. These were created as WordPress Pages containing custom loops which look up and display exhibitions with the appropriate Start and End Date custom fields. Here’s an example of the WordPress code:
The CodeIgniter versions of these pages were then redirected to their WP counterparts, completing the migration.
Project Team
Marty Spellerberg, Principal, Spellerberg Associates
Sarah Wambold, Former Director of Digital Media, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Marian Oman, Content Coordinator, Spellerberg Associates
Shauna Skalitzky, Assistant Editor, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Conference microsite and archive for the Santa Cruz MAH’s Museum Camp
Museum Camp is an annual conference produced by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. The format is similar to a hack-a-thon: Participants have 72 hours to work on a project consistent with a theme. This year’s theme was “Social Impact Assessment” and involved conducting research projects based on different locations around Santa Cruz.
Since Museum Camp is something that will recur each year, we decided to build a home for the camp separate from the main Museum website. As well as moving over the camp literature, we developed a portion of the site which allows participants to post documentation their projects to share with their peers and future researchers.
The Museum Camp logo was designed by Andrew McBride.
Website redesign for the Clyfford Still Museum
Featuring a bold, responsive design, the new website for the Clyfford Still Museum launched in October, 2014. This new site helps the museum position itself as a destination, a site of pilgrimage for art lovers interested in the life and work of master abstract expressionist painter Clyfford Still.
The project goals were to simplify the navigation and information architecture; build a new, more flexible and user-friendly content management system; and provide a updated, responsive design that featured more generous visuals and highlighted the museum’s building—an architectural gem.
We employed an Agile approach and worked with museum stakeholders to identify institutional priorities for the redevelopment project. We conducted several assessments of the previous site, including a site audit and a usability study, as well as several assessments of the information architecture throughout the process, to test our assumptions and inform our final decisions.
Project Collaborators
Content Strategist and Project Manager: Sarah Wambold
Designer: Scott Reinhard
Developer: Marty Spellerberg / Spellerberg Associates
for the Clyfford Still Museum: Dean Sobel and John Eding
Redesigned website navigation for the Santa Cruz MAH
I recently redesigned the top-navigation of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History’s website. Working closely with Museum staff, I simplified the nav and introduced a modern, mobile-responsive interface pattern.
The MAH is about engagement. The Museum is fulfilling its mission when it’s “bringing people together around art and history.” The seed of this navigation change began with a conversation about opportunities to better accomplish that mission using the website.
The design at that time included seven top-level links — Calendar, Exhibitions, Learn, Get Involved, Rent the MAH, Blog and About. We realized that this fairly typical collection of links didn’t signal to visitors how central getting involved was to the MAH experience.
Now, by reducing that down to three — See & Do, Get Involved and About — we’re more clearly communicating to visitors the Museum’s character and priorities.
Also, the web has changed since the site’s last redesign. Mobile apps and responsive web design have introduced a slew of new interaction patterns. While the site has not yet been converted to responsive (a project that’s currently in-progress), we used a mobile-inspired interaction pattern for the second-level links.
Whereas the old design used a drop-down style commonly cribbed from desktop menus, for this design clicking/tapping each of the top-level items triggers a full-screen shade.
And rather than listing the second-level links horizontally, we’ve stacked them vertically. This reduces line-length-imposed character limitations, allowing the Museum the flexibility to include as many items as they need in each shade, each with as many words as is needed for effective communication.
Project team
- Marty Spellerberg, Designer/Developer for Spellerberg Associates
- Elise Granata, Marketing & Engagement Coordinator for the Santa Cruz MAH
WordPress development for Clockshop
Clockshop is an arts organization in Los Angeles, working “at the intersection of politics, urban space, and cultural production to explore the forces that shape our lived environment.” They do a lot of site-specific programming involving locations and communities in the city.
I recently had the opportunity to collaborate with them on their website. They were happy with the visual style of their site, originally designed by Nicole Rodarte, but had found their programming archive had outgrown the handful of static HTML pages they were serving. So we moved the site over to WordPress and iterated on their information architecture. The new platform presents site visitors with a better understanding of Clockshop’s work, and provides the room they need for what promises to be an exciting year of programming growth.
Touchscreen interactive for the Chinese American Museum Los Angeles
I recently had the opportunity to again collaborate with the Chinese American Museum on an interactive touchscreen in-gallery kiosk. The piece is part of the exhibition Tales of the Distant Past: The Story of Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora and illustrates the Chinese diaspora around the world.
Design and development of the project began with a Museum-supplied spreadsheet of the Chinese population for each of the world’s countries, sourced from the Wall Street Journal. Realizing that many of the countries would be presented at sizes that would be much too small to work as touchscreen hit-targets, I combined them into 50 interactive pieces. Each of these pieces can be tapped to open up a detail screen presenting the Chinese population in each country.
The interactive was built using HTML/CSS/JavaScript, with SVGs for the maps. It’s presented via a web browser in kiosk mode, running locally on a computer housed inside the wall.
This is the second map-based touchscreen in-gallery kiosk I’ve created for the Chinese American Museum Los Angeles. The first was Origins: Monterey Park, A Chinese American Suburb, focused on the community around LA.
The Chinese American Museum Los Angeles, housed in the oldest and last surviving structure of LA’s original Chinatown, is dedicated to the Chinese American experience and history in Southern California.
Designing a Visitor-Centric, Mobile-First Homepage for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
We’re excited to have launched a new homepage for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art And History! It’s the fruit of a year of development, analytics and design.
Led by Executive Director Nina Simon, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History is a participatory museum. Its mission is to ignite shared experiences and unexpected connections and, when we’re successful, our work helps build a stronger, more connected community. We start with the people and work back to the museum; everything from our programming to communications is premised on an understanding of our communities’ needs. So in redesigning our homepage we asked, “how can we use knowledge of our visitor’s motivations to deliver a focused, user-focused mobile web experience?”
Research
In Mobile First, Luke Wroblewski wrote, “websites and applications should be designed and built for mobile first … the end result is an experience focused on the key tasks users want to accomplish.” To identify these key tasks, we began by focusing on the motivations of our visitors.
In his book Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience, John Falk outlined a predictive model of visitor experience designed to help museum professionals better meet their visitors’ needs. Through research with dozens of museums and thousands of visitors, Falk established his predictive model of visitor experience. While this work is now widely shared expertise in the field, most of the suggestions apply to facility and exhibition design. We took it to the web.
Falk’s framework identifies museum visitor motivations as:
- Experience Seeker
- Explorer
- Socializer
- Recharger
- Hobbyist / Professional
We applied this research to our homepage redesign project, adjusting the visitor archetypes to fit our local audience. We created fleshed-out personas that included descriptions of how each intrinsic motivation tracks to museum programming and engagement opportunities; and what kinds of messaging and imagery they may positively respond to.
Design
We mapped each motivation to an area on the new homepage. Each block contains a set of elements — a tagline, an image, an activity and a couple of links — that are populated with content tailored specifically to the motivation. This means that our choice of what events and activities to feature are driven by appeals to specific segments of our audience. But we also wanted to ensure support for the Museum’s broader marketing priorities, so included a “This Week at the MAH” block at the very top.
The previous website design was more scattered, event-heavy, and encouraged “click on what you know” rather than exploration. We hope that this new design will push fresh content specifically curated for each identity, encouraging a broader understanding of how visitors can engage with the MAH.
We’ll be closely watching the analytics to see how visitors are now using the site’s homepage.
Team
This project was a collaboration between Marty Spellerberg, principal at Spellerberg Projects; and Elise Granata, marketing and engagement coordinator at the MAH. Thank you also to Joe Costello for usability contributions; and to Ahree Lee for persona consultation.