Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
The Bainbridge Island Museum of Art is a collecting museum in Winslow, Washington that showcases the art and craft of the Puget Sound Region. Founded in 2009, BIMA strives to make the art of the Puget Sound Region visible, approachable, and available.
Currently, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art does not show its Permanent Art Collection online.
The museum lists the artists of the Permanent Art Collection, but there is no way for website visitors to view the artwork of the PAC.
This feature has been on deck for a while but remained on the back burner as other high-priority projects were completed.
The long-term motivation for building this feature is apparent. BIMA would be able to show its artworks more widely and reach more viewers.
When Governor Inslee announced the stay home order in March 2020, BIMA found a silver lining in that their audience was eager to engage with the museum digitally.
At this point, making the Permanent Art Collection viewable online became a much higher priority - it became the only way for the museum to show its art.
BIMA’s existing Permanent Art Collection page
My Roles
User Research
I collaborated with classmates to survey users about how they view art online and to interview BIMA stakeholders to fully understand the challenge.
Information Architecture
I structured the feature to allow users to easily explore the art and artists of the Permanent Art Collection.
Visual Design
Working within BIMA’s existing brand expression, I developed the layout of the Permanent Art Collection feature.
BIMA wants its Permanent Art Collection to reach as many online viewers as possible.
While their physical visitors are mostly local to Puget Sound Region, BIMA’s growing online audience hails from further afield.
In our group’s stakeholder interview, the museum highlighted two primary audiences that guided and informed my process:
Casual browsers, who are exploring the site without a specific goal or intent.
Goal-directed searchers, who have come to the website for a distinct purpose.
Additionally, BIMA wants this new feature to be useful to artists, who can use the digital Permanent Art Collection as a tool to establish credibility and gain a wider audience.
From our general survey, we found that people missed being able to see art in person, but also appreciated the ability to dive deeper into an artwork or artist when viewing their work online.
The digital version of the PAC needed to balance the needs of artists, visitors, and the museum.
In my research, I identified requirements that any successful solution would need to address:
Identifying and displaying the artists and artworks in the Permanent Art Collection.
Connecting the artists and artworks of the PAC to ongoing exhibitions and events at the museum.
Giving users the ability to sort and filter content to quickly find what they’re looking for. This involved considerations like how granular the filtering system needed to be, and whether to place it on the Permanent Art Collection page or integrate it in the site-wide search.
Explicit Categories
Desktop Wireframes - Categories
I used categories to create an implicit top-level filter to guide the user.
Flexible Layouts
Desktop Wireframes - Artwork Display
I used a variable ratio based on a fixed height or fixed width to accommodate the varying sizes of the art.
Advanced Search
Desktop Wireframes - Search
I expanded the site-wide search to include refinements that efficiently focus queries.
I used BIMA’s existing brand expression to guide the visual design of the Permanent Art Collection section.
Desktop Design
For casual browsers, I built two points of entry to the Permanent Art Collection: the artists and the artworks.
Digital Permanent Art Collection
In the “Explore Artists” section, the user can browse through the artists of the Permanent Art Collection.
Users can dive deeper by reading artist biographies, which include a carousel of their works in the PAC, past and future exhibitions, and links to the artist’s website and gallery representation.
In the “Explore the Collection” section, the user can browse through the artworks of the Permanent Art Collection.
The art is categorized by evergreen media types and rotating categories that highlight specific artists, events, or themes. BIMA can use these categories to drive users to specific content.
As the user navigates into the category pages, the artwork will be shown at a variable ratio based on a fixed height to allow for as much of the artwork to be shown as possible.
I refined the site-wide search with filters to focus search queries.
Desktop Search Page
Mobile Design
I used responsive design principles to create a mobile experience that matched the desktop site as closely as possible.
Users can swipe within artwork categories to scan the art in each category without leaving the main Permanent Art Collection Section.
Within each artwork category, I took advantage of the vertical scroll pattern we see so frequently in social media.
Feedback
My design was well-received by the team at BIMA. Korum Bischoff, the museum’s Director of Marketing, appreciated how seamlessly my solution fit with their existing site. The curatorial team was intrigued by the use of artist’s headshots to represent their avatars.
Lessons & Next Steps
I’d love to collect more data on what BIMA website visitors are searching for and fine-tune the search filters to create a more efficient and satisfying search experience.
I’d also love to add a sharing function to artists, artworks, and events to generate user-initiated social media activity.