Getty Museum Collection

After using our new component library to redesign the Research Collections and creating the Animal Crossing Art generator, it was time to tackle high-profile pages inside Getty.edu. The Museum Collection's online presentation builds on the profound scholarship already available, integrates with other resources across Getty and around the world, leverages new ways of engagement, such as 3D imagery, and highlights our copyright-free images.

Project ongoing: page will continue to be updated.

The existing museum collection pages have grown organically over the past seven years and have not had a major visual refresh since the initial launch. Over that period, it has gained significant new features, most recently Essays and IIIF integration. Still, the site needs a redesign to integrate those features holistically into a comprehensive user experience.

• Update the UI to match to new brand guidelines
• Increase the number of downloads for free-to-use images
• Improve the experience and increase the number of users on mobile
• Expose information that was hidden due to technological constraints
• Provide vital links to materials, artworks, and resources inside the Museum Collection and across Getty
• Enhance search to help users find what they are looking for
• Improve the experience of viewing and navigating manuscripts and objects with multiple parts

• Easily find copyright-free images for personal use, study, and teaching
• Easily download and request high-quality images of artwork
• Discover new and exciting artworks
• Understand the collections' scale, scope, composition, and strengths
• Know what gallery an artwork is in and the location of that gallery
• Enjoy exploring the collection by following interesting linked materials (video, blog posts) and related objects

The core of the Getty's collection is its art, so that was where we wanted to start our research. I had considerable data about our researcher persona from my user research for the Research Collections viewer. Still, there was a lot to learn about our art enthusiasts.

First, I worked with a colleague to do an environmental scan of artwork detail pages across 40 art institutions. Then, we used Airtable to catalog features, design & data notes, search capabilities, image download experience, and how they handle objects with parts. Lastly, we used this information with our business requirements and user needs as a basis for our wireframe design.