It had been five years since the Walters Art Museum had updated its Web site, and it was time for a change.
“We really needed to update the Web site and freshen it,” said Michael Smith, director of marketing at the Walters. Planit, the museum?s agency of record for Web design, started in on the challenge last year.
“[The Walters] needed a complete overhaul from the front end to the very back end. They had some antiquated Web site that was not reflective of the physical experience of the museum,” Holly Moring, Planit senior project manager said. “They wanted a more modern and user-friendly design.”
Planit added more content and more sections that were more streamlined and easy for users to navigate. The Walters also wanted to digitize their collection of art. “They wanted a system to enable them to upload and catalog all of their objects, so we created a system that they can edit and update themselves,” Moring said. The firm also added a large e-commerce section for various levels of membership, as well as an interactive calendar to house the museums exhibitions and events. This way, visitors can register on the web for events.
The biggest challenge for the agency, Moring said, was the fact that there were so many different components of equal importance within the Walters. “The donation department needs as much merit as the education department, plus the exhibitions and the collections,” she said. “The challenge for an organization such as this is balancing all the components that come together to make it successful. It involves a lot of work. We had to create a site that looks good and is user-friendly and isn?t overwhelming.”
Planit worked internally with the Walters to create the best site possible. The entire process took about nine months with eight people working on it and had a soft launch in August 2006. The hard launch was in October, when the Walters introduced free admission.
Michael Smith said that overall the organization has been satisfied with the results. “Our tracking now is better than it has been; we can see what pages people are coming into,” he said. “It?s really interesting to see where our visitors are coming from, we can see that now a lot clearer than we had before. We?ve had very positive feedback.”
Contact the Agency
» Planit
» Location: 601 E. Pratt St., Baltimore
» Telephone: 410-962-8500
» Web site: www.planitagen cy.com
