Lightning Talk

Saturday, April 06, 2019: 9:30am - 11:00am - Grand Ballroom: Lightning Talks

Ariana French, American Museum of Natural History, USA

What’s the point of a museum’s website, and what purpose does it serve? Is it different from what purpose it should serve? How can websites and content strategies evolve over time, aligned to visitor behaviors? This lightning talk will be a case study of the evolving content strategies guiding the overhaul of AMNH.org, the website for the American Museum of Natural History.

AMNH.org is changing to achieve a singular goal: “The right content, for the right audience, found easily.” Using a “what we know” and a “what we don’t know” set of strategies, website content and architecture will be aligned to audience-specific needs in small, incremental changes. 

This lightning talk will cover:

– What’s the point of a museum website, and does its purpose change over time?
– Developing a content strategy that can evolve alongside our visitors: Analytics, A/B testing, and qualitative research – on an ongoing basis
– Traditional vs. experimental content strategies: Are exhaustive content audits still necessary, or can we use data and best practices to expedite evaluation? How does internal organization inform content creation and discovery, and what’s the optimal combination of the two?