National Museums Scotland – showcasing collections online

National Museums Scotland care for over 12 million objects in their collections – that's a huge number of items, which could never all be physically on display at once.

So, the National Museum Scotland website is a key tool in helping them achieve their mission “to preserve, interpret and make accessible for all, the past and present of Scotland, other nations and cultures, and the natural world”. (Particularly that "make accessible for all" part.)

We designed the new website to showcase collections objects through an integration with Axiell Collections, a web-based collection management system.

But before starting on the new website project, National Museum Scotland worked with the good people at One Further to review the existing collections search functionality, and how users were interacting with it. Using findings from One Further’s report, we explored new features for collections search.

Search: making results more meaningful

One Further’s research showed us that users were engaging with the search – but not so much the results. They suggested this may be due in part to the large number of placeholder images appearing within search results.

Without an image, the user was being given very little information about an object. It almost appeared as though there was nothing to display.

But many objects within the collection don't have an image. So it was important for the initial search to provide useful information for users; even for objects without an image.

Old website

The default view on the old website only showed an object name and image. (This may help you understand why these objects were rarely engaged with!)

New website

We redesigned search results into 'cards'. Each one clearly grouping related information together and including a short description of the item – whether or not an image is available.

Added to these improvements, there's also a clear call to action – 'View more details' – to encourage engagement:

Making the most of images

Where images are available, these are highly valuable as they allow users to get a closer look at the objects. Our re-design places images – when available – front and centre, so they can be examined in detail.

I have been really impressed with Supercool as developers and as partners. They are always actively working with us to find the best solutions, and their communication is consistent, honest, and transparent. This took so much potential stress out of the trickier design challenges and technical hurdles that are inevitable in a big project. They are very easy to work with, and are also just lovely people.

Kate Amann – Digital Product Manager, National Museums Scotland

Iterative development

Although it can be tempting to change or 'fix' as much as possible during a new website project, there are benefits to making small changes over time.

Rather than attempting to fix everything at once, we've taken an iterative approach – tackling some of the biggest issues first, and building the website so that it's flexible enough to support gradual improvements.

Over the next 12 months we’ll be working with the teams at National Museum Scotland and One Further to review the collections search function, and make meaningful changes based on real-world user behaviours.