The Museum of Glass

The Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art opened in July of 2002 and since has since seen over a million visitors. With a live glass blowing hot shop, a theatre, an education studio and galleries full of Contemporary Art this is one museum that does not make for a dusty and boring trip!

Big changes...

The site was originally built in 2001 using a Microsoft / ASP technology. It was practically unusable by the staff, and proprietary components that were used to build it made it impossible to update or reprogram. We managed the migration of the six-figure site to an open Java based platform. The migration lasted for several weeks, but when it was finished we had a clean code base and the ability to modify the site in whatever way we needed.

Overview

With a large site like museumofglass.org it can be hard to find what you are looking for. It's important to define what your potential visitors will be looking for, and what they will be expecting when they get to your site. In this case, the Museum of Glass has many types of content, so making sure that people can quickly get what they are looking for requires constant evaluation and refinement. The top navigation is revised as content areas grow or are combined. The left side navigation gives users context-sensitive options depending on what section of the site they are in. The right side links persist throughout to ensure that visitors can request information, look for an event on the calendar, or purchase a membership at anytime.

The site has many sections, represented roughly by the major navigation areas at the top:
Art, Education, Get Involved (philanthropic and volunteer opportunities), The Building (information about the iconic architecture), Hot Shop (information about the glass blowing amphitheater), Information (general information for visitors and press), and Store (the online store).

These content areas also roughly mirror the organizational structure of the museum, making sure that all aspects of the museum's mission are represented. Another small tool that helps to direct the visitor is the 'Hot Links' section on the homepage which is updated regularly and used to highlight upcoming events or announcements.

Online Ticketing

One of the most important aspects of any website for an organization is the ability to streamline the purchasing process and a museum is no different. We have developed the online ticketing and donation system for the Museum of Glass with both the staff and visitor in mind. The system integrates the online calendar with the box office; any event with tickets for sale will display a 'Buy Now' button on that event in the calendar. All online transactions are done over a secure connection, and email notifications are sent to the responsible staff person for processing. The staff post events and download ticket information through a secured administration interface. Most regular changes to the site are done by Museum staff using this interface, greatly reducing the training time and knowledge required to make content updates.

Educational Activities

Another important function of the Museum of Glass is to serve as an educational institution for the community. One way to expand the reach of its education programs is to put materials online which enables teachers, students and other visitors to exand their knowledge without making a trip to the Museum itself. Online curriculum, activities, and streaming video make up this valuable resource. One of the most complex projects produced by the Museum was a collaboration with POP! Multimedia called the Virtual Hot Shop which enables visitors to blow a virtual glass 'macchia'. The Virtual Hot Shop was developed with Flash technology and contains RealVideo streaming video components. It was presented at the 2003 Museums and the Web Conference
and was featured in the February 2004 issue of Horizon Air's in-flight magazine in a story about the digital medium and museums.

Streaming Media

A favorite component of the Museum of Glass website is the use of streaming video and multimedia to make it an ever-changing and dynamic place for visitors. During the summer months the museum has a program called the 'Summer Artist Series'. During this time the museum invites artists to come and work in the hot shop where visitors can view the art-making process right in front of them. In conjunction with this is a very intense web content creation period when still photos and video are shot and edited every day of the artists' residencies and uploaded to the site. This way web visitors can track the progress of a piece of artwork that was started during their visit to the museum and see what other artists are doing during each week. This is generally a 10 to 14 week long period, so quite a large amount of content is created and put up on the web in a short period of time.

Think we could help you in the same way? Please let us know via our Contact Form and we'll get in touch with you right away to discuss how we can make your project a success.

Go to The Museum of Glass