Field Museum
The Field Museum is a Chicago cultural institution and the fourth largest natural history museum in the world. On the eve of their 125th anniversary, they partnered with Purple Rocks Scissors to redesign their website to align their digital presence with their new brand and mission. I led the design of this project.
Areas of Focus
Architecture
A major goal of the redesign was to make it easier for guests to plan their visits to the museum. We re-hauled over 2,000 pages into a new information architecture that not only completed the visit-planning goal but also made it easier to discover educational materials, events, and science content.
Accessibility
A WCAG 2.0 compliance requirement from the start gave us opportunities to innovate and serve users. As a designer, it meant iterating on common patterns with careful consideration to color contrast, focus states, and implied hierarchy.
Flexibility
I designed a flexible component system that can scale at the pace of content growth.
Brand
I worked closely with Leo Burnett to translate the brand they designed for the Field Museum into a digital space for thousands to enjoy. The clean user interface employs the brand’s type and color options to create a beautiful, scholarly aesthetic, establish hierarchy and add flashes of bold drama into the design.
Interactive discovery components, taxonomy systems, and a redefined architecture help users truly explore the Field Museum's vast science content.
Developer Brandon Chang walks through the site using screen reading software. It was awesome to see how our hard work would benefit someone who couldn't experience the internet through sight.
Key results
87%
increase in clicks out ticketing platform from Visit-related pages on desktop
47%
decreased reliance on search to navigate from the homepage on desktop
360%
increase in clicks out to ticketing platform from Visit-related pages on mobile
153%
increase in average time on page
