Overview
The staff and leadership at the South Carolina State Museum chose Interactive Knowledge to update its existing website which was 10+ years old, not responsive, and did not meet current ADA standards. Users were faced with a clunky experience for purchasing tickets, renewing memberships, or donating to the museum. The website content was out of date, disorganized and unintuitive for navigation. The Interactive Knowledge team completed a full Discovery Phase, identified and prioritized the project goals, developed a full content strategy and implemented a new site in under 1 year.
The goals
The staff and leadership at the South Carolina State Museum chose Interactive Knowledge to update its existing website which was 10+ years old, not responsive, and did not meet current ADA standards. Users were faced with a clunky experience for purchasing tickets, renewing memberships, or donating to the museum. The website content was out of date, disorganized and unintuitive for navigation. The Interactive Knowledge team completed a full Discovery Phase, identified and prioritized the project goals, developed a full content strategy and implemented a new site in under 1 year.
The IK approach
The existing SCSM site contained a wealth of information that was disorganized and difficult to find. Interactive Knowledge began this project with a comprehensive Discovery Phase to find the pain points of the user experience, the wishes of the staff and stakeholders, and closely examine the site’s analytics. We met department leaders to understand their needs, developed surveys to help pinpoint priorities, and developed visitor personas to identify the 8 different audience types.
From this Discovery Phase, we identified the project goals and the measures we will take to reach that goal. These goals ultimately dictated the site’s new content strategy and specific site functionality
The results
The South Carolina State Museum website redesign focused heavily on user experience improvements. Decisions were made from a detailed Discovery process and the content strategy was developed from the collaborative goals Interactive Knowledge and SCSM devised from the beginning.
Features included:
- Improved Content Strategy with clear paths for finding the most sought-after content via a mega menu structure
- Visitor-centered experience including a Plan Your Visit tool and Interactive Map
- Filterable events by type
- Comprehensive search tool utilizing taxonomy with filterable results
- A Streamlined ticketing process helps users purchase tickets for admission and shows easily
- Enhanced accessibility information for visitors
- English to Spanish translation tool
- Our relationship with the State Museum will continue for the next 4 years as we move into a maintenance and support phase.
The new State Museum website was awarded the 2023 South Carolina Notable State Documents award. The Notable State Documents Awards Program began in 1991 to recognize exemplary state publications. In honor of Freedom of Information Day, awards are presented each March in a ceremony at the State Library. The awards recognize notable state agency publications that were released in the previous calendar year.