Lightning Talk

Beyond delighting visitors with accessible, inspiring, and ever-changing cultural experiences, the newly renamed Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (formerly the Arkansas Arts Center) is a catalyst for advancing arts education, enhancing the quality of life, and promoting civic and cultural development in the Little Rock community and beyond.

In an effort to elevate their visibility and highlight the museum as a player on the national arts landscape, the museum launched a significant rebrand in January 2021 and is undergoing a complete renovation of their physical space. During construction, it became clear that the museum’s existing digital presence would not do justice to the quality of their new space and an esteemed collection. With the onset of Covid 19, a new priority emerged: They needed to maintain engagement during closures and construction in addition to increasing the interest in—and impact of—the new space until its opening in 2022.

Forum One conducted a series of interviews and workshops, convening with a range of stakeholders to establish alignment around goals for the museum’s new online presence. Keeping the user experience top-of-mind in our designs and site architecture, we conducted user testing along the way. Activities like these helped to identify content priorities and pinpoint the most effective ways to surface the range of offerings and opportunities for visitors to engage with the AMFA.

Forum One designed and built a new online home for the AMFA, creating new opportunities for the museum to engage with their existing audience and cultivate new users. The design of the site, incorporating their new branding, highlights the world-class artwork in the museum’s collection and elevates their digital presence to match that of comparators. The new website also streamlines the administrative process for museum staff. Seamless pathways to external third-party systems automate the display of content and allow for smarter transactions and tracking.

Speaker:

Christine Perlick, Senior Account Manager, Forum One