The V&A Museum of Childhood, website review.
21.03.2014
The V&A Museum of Childhood website is user-friendly, the sections are well organised, and all the information is clearly displayed; everything is very easy to find and understand. Overall, this is a good website that serves the purpose of informing the visitors what’s on at the Museum, together with information about its collections, facilities, and activities. Everything looks neat and is tidily arranged, and that is how it should be, considering the quantity of information available on the site. However, it could be given a fresh look, perhaps making use of stronger colours. Would it not be fun, for example, to see an engaging icon (a small star or a little flower) instead of a neutral white glove when moving the mouse pointer around the site?
While navigating the website I found a few things that could definitely be improved. I will suggest how and why below.
Considering that museum visitors are getting more digitally aware and, furthermore, most have a presence on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, the Museum team should really invest time and resources on making the site as interactive as possible. This doesn’t necessarily mean having a crazily interactive 3D cartoon or a few apps; sometimes a simple thing like a blog can really help.
The Museum’s website does actually have a blog, but this is not easily discovered. The blog is located under the ‘Collections’ section instead of being part of the main menu at the top of the page. That is probably because the blog is not considered a priority, thus accounting for its location and the poor frequency of its posts. This is a missed opportunity to engage with visitors and share updates with them on the current show, upcoming events, news, and so much more. A well-developed blog could have a positive impact on the Museum as, through their comments, visitors could help in shaping the Museum’s programme and events.
Here, I would suggest creating a sort of diary or journal. Perhaps the blog could tells the adventures of a young child, who every week discovers a new object from the Museum’s collection. This would be easily maintained and would cost little. In return for the effort, the Museum could promote its collections and let people discover a new item every week. This is, of course, only one example; there are many ideas that potentially could be explored.
The ‘Collection’ section is well-structured and easy to navigate; for me, this is the best section of the website. However, there are a few small items that could be developed further. The ‘Share’ button could be more visible in order to encourage people to share the pictures and the information about a selected object; ultimately, the site could be made more visually appealing and playful—after all, this is a museum for children!
In places, the text is a little bit too long and too dense. It would be good to have a zoom function when clicking on the image; however, the image does get larger once you click on it and perhaps the zoom function is not essential at this stage.
The ‘Learning’ section is bursting with useful information for schools and the Museum runs a variety of teaching sessions in situ. However, as regards the virtual experience, something more could be on offer for those who cannot actually pay a physical visit to the Museum. It would be worth considering incorporating videos and podcasts about the current exhibition.
There is a brilliant virtual tour of the Museum. This is currently located under both the ‘Visit us’ section and the ‘Corporate and private hire’ section. I would enlarge the area to make it more visible and place it under the ‘Visit us’ section only.
The Museum’s pages on social networks are updated frequently and appear very engaging. I like the fact that you can see the latest Twitter posts on the home page. It would not hurt to have the social networks icons (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flicker) a little bit bolder.
In all, it seems to me that the website is too timid, and does not allow the Museum’s virtues to shine; this is a pity as the Museum has such a dazzling collection. I hope that my tentative suggestions above might help in brightening up the site.
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