Client: The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Project: Website Redesign and Online Virtual Tour

inspiration

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is committed to promoting an understanding of the natural and cultural forces that generate, shape, and sustain our world. The museum houses an unsurpassed world collection of more than 120 million natural and cultural objects. The museum desired a top-level redesign of the site and the integration of their newly acquired content management system (CMS) for key pages.

narration

While the museum curators appreciated the concept of integrating a CMS, they were concerned about losing the considerable investment they had made in existing online content. Night Kitchen Interactive’s unique approach involved a three-phase, three-tier process that would provide the museum with the most benefit in the long term.

design

In the first phase we completed the top level redesign, focusing on an engaging, highly usable and accessible site. In developing a consistent and effective user interface and structure for the site, we updated its content maps and the global navigation scheme that runs across the top tier of the site’s pages, followed by an extensive usability testing and revision cycle. Now in the second phase, we are providing the NMNH with templates to allow museum staff to update key aspects of the site with their own dynamic content. In the final phase, we will train and support museum staff in migrating their existing content into the new design templates, facilitating a much more comprehensive redesign than originally anticipated.

interaction

Night Kitchen Interactive is also creating a dynamic, engaging virtual tour, providing an interactive 3D map of the museum. The map features visual callouts and clickable exhibit profiles with updateable text and images for changing exhibits, collections and renovations. Through our collaboration with the NMNH team, the website will ultimately showcase the museum’s offerings in a more dynamic way, encouraging visitor exploration throughout the site, while making it easily updateable by museum staff.