National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art engaged us to assess and enhance its visitor experience. Our research, on-site studies, and experience mapping informed the development of a new, audience-driven web platform that fully embodies the Gallery’s refreshed brand and strengthens its connection with its evolving audiences.

Audience research helped us understand how visitors engaged with the old digital experience, which largely spoke to art-world insiders. It set the groundwork for strategic recommendations that included a new web platform that could meet the diverse demands of a national audience.

Our experience strategy translated the audience research into achievable goals, and grounded the work in the National Gallery’s vision to welcome all people.

Visitor journey mapping captured specific tactics that could positively impact the visitor experience.

A detailed roadmap and concept designs helped translate our experience strategy into actionable next steps and workstreams.

Everyone’s invited to the National Gallery 

The redesigned site meets a wide range of visitor needs, and embraces approachability. The result is a welcoming experience for all visitors, both new to and experts in the arts.

A dynamic new design system embraced and extended NGA’s brand, and transformed their digital presence into a presence that truly welcomes everyone.

Interactive articles with custom IIIF features support close-looking and help visitors engage with artworks in new ways.

AI-generated art moodboards

We pushed on new ways to interact with the National Gallery artwork collection, including creating ArtVibes, an AI-generated mood board featuring artworks from the collection.

Converting visit planners into visitors

Complex and ambiguous user journeys are now intuitive and inclusive, with clear content entry points.

The calendar was reimagined to align with user expectations rather than internal assumptions, and testing with real users helped validate accessibility and new features. 

Credits

Narrative Lead
Kristina Jenkins

UX Strategy
Troy Lachance

Creative Direction
Kim Gim, Matt Hallock

Project Management
Pete Hall, Sarah Willis, Ashley Stratton-Rayner, Sarah Leighton

Designer
An Bui, Emily

Technology Lead
Mark Llobrera

Backend Developers
Pete Inge, Amit Asaravala, Alozie Nwosu, Joshua Turton

UX Engineers
Shaun Baer, Amy Frear, Putra Bonaccorsi, Henry Steinberg, Clay Tercek