For my senior project, I volunteered with a classmate to redesign the Paso Robles Children's Museum website from end-to-end. We worked closely with the museum directors to bring their vision of a modern, user-friendly website to life.
Before our redesign, the website had an outdated look that could potentially detract from the professionalism and credibility of the museum to new visitors. Information throughout the site was disorganized and repetitive, due to a lack of intuitive navigation.
Our goal was to create a modernized website that museum visitors and other stakeholders could easily navigate, while retaining all the important information on the current website and the museum’s core branding.
As a children's museum website, the primary audience is potential and returning museum visitors — particularly parents of young kids. We catered to this audience by framing content around the educational value of the museum and including images of children interacting with and enjoying the exhibits. We also kept the design bright and playful without being too kiddy — since the website itself would be utilized mainly by the parents, not kids.
We started by doing a thorough walkthrough of the website to identify opportunities for improvement in usability, content, and design for each page. Below are our notes for the home page, navigation, and exhibits.
Since one of our goals for the redesign was to modernize the website, we researched popular websites of similar organizations to see the design and content patterns followed by museums today.
One website we drew a lot of inspiration from was the MOXI Children’s Museum.
Our site map established the framework for the new website's structure and addressed the navigation problems outlined in the discovery stage. We incorporated standard navigation patterns from competitor sites like Moxi to ensure the website structure was on-trend and intuitive.
When creating the new design system, we didn’t want to stray too far from the site’s original branding, since it's also used throughout the physical museum. Our color palette utilizes the same base colors from the original website. However, we played around with the shades to be brighter and contrast each other more, which is important for accessibility and gives them a more modern feel.
In addition, we modernized the logo by simplifying it and removing the outlines around the text. For typography, we went with the sans-serif font Poppins, which we chose for its high legibility and clean, friendly appearance. In the spirit of increased legibility, we also used larger font sizes for both headings and body copy than the original website.
While the original site featured many great photos of children playing, the quality indicated they hadn’t been updated in years. Additionally, most of the photos were displayed as small thumbnails, requiring users to click on the photo to expand it. This created extra work for the user and detracted from the images.
In order to upgrade the quality, we decided to take and edit new photos ourselves. It served as great opportunity for us to visit the museum and meet the people we were working with. The staff and parents there were extremely accommodating, and the kids were great sports.
The experience made me connect with the project on a deeper level as I grew a personal appreciation for the museum, the people there, and its mission.
After conducting research on CMS platforms, we determined that Squarespace would be the best option for the museum to host the new website, due to a combination of cost-effectiveness, modern templates, and ease of use. We wanted to make sure the museum staff could easily update content when we handed the website off.
With the exception of the home page, which we wireframed in Figma first, we worked directly in Squarespace to save time. We split the pages evenly between us; I took on the home page, exhibits, about, and events.
In Figma, we restructured the home page to feature multiple sections, each highlighting a different aspect of the museum. This allowed us to showcase the museum's mission & unique offerings to prospective visitors. We also increased image size and included CTA buttons throughout. I built the final page in Squarespace, fine-tuning the design and filling in the content.
For the exhibits page, I utilized the new photos, increased the image sizes, and eliminated all other content on the page to make sure the exhibits were the focus.
Again, I let the images speak for themselves. I made sure they were large, clear, and featured plenty of photos of children playing to highlight the exhibits' interactivity and appeal to parents.
The parties page was one where I significantly reworked the content. I condensed the text and formatted it so it was easier to scan, utilizing concise bullet points wherever possible and bolding key information. Last but not least, I highlighted details of the two party rooms side-by-side and added visuals of both, so customers could quickly compare the two options without having to scroll back and forth.
The redesigned website has been published and is now maintained by the museum staff. In addition to receiving positive feedback from the museum directors, we were able to generate around 1.8K monthly revenue through the introduction of online ticket sales and decrease the homepage bounce rate by 30%.
I enjoyed this project because it challenged me to step out of my comfort zone and wear many hats — serving as not only a UX/UI designer, but also a content writer and photographer. In addition, I was able to familiarize myself with Squarespace and add a new CMS to my tool belt.
Additionally, working with an established local client added a new level of accountability to the project, ensuring that we created something that not only we were proud of, but provided value to the museum. While it was a big responsibility, it made it all the more rewarding when we succeeded.
If I were to do things differently, I would have created a handoff document establishing more specific design guidelines pertaining to layout and content to ensure it was easy to maintain.
