Most people arrive at a museum website with simple questions: What’s on view? When can I visit? How do I get tickets? At the Morgan Library & Museum, those answers exist, but the volume of information and overload of content often makes it hard for visitors to know where to begin and feel overwhelmed before they ever step inside the museum. What if the Morgan’s website acted less like an archive and more like an easy-to-follow guide?
Team:
Jane N, Harleen K, Esha N
Skills
UI/UX Design Research Information Architecture
Timeline:
Sept - Dec 2025
Research
What Do Museum Visitors Care About?
User Interviews
We interviewed six museum-goers to understand how they plan and experience museum visits. Across interviews, visitors consistently prioritized:
Clear ticket, exhibition, & event information
Accurate museum details
Seamless support across the entire journey — from pre-visit planning to on-site experience and post-visit engagement
How Do We Fix The Morgan's Content Overload Issue?
Card Sorting & Tree Testing
We conducted 6 card sorting sessions and 7 tree tests to better understand our users' mental models and how to restructure the current site's information architecture.
Key takeaways:
Users think in actions, not institutional categories
A goal-based information architecture better matches expectations
Unfamiliar or internal terminology causes confusion such as "Reading Room"
Research Insight
Through research and usability testing, one pattern became clear:
Visitors didn’t need more information, they needed direction.
Clear hierarchy and goal-oriented task flows was the key to reducing overwhelm & helped inform our final site map.
Our Design Approach
We redesigned our users' most important experiences.
Ticket Purchase Flow
Streamlined to feel calm & seamless, reducing decision fatigue
Exhibitions Experience
Made more engaging & accessible by surfacing key details early & introducing audio guides
Homepage
Reorganized to clearly communicate what the Morgan offers without overwhelming users
Information Architecture
Simplified and restructured to better match how visitors think & search
What Did Users Think About Our Low-Mid Fidelity?
Testing & Iteration
We conducted 6 usability tests across desktop and mobile mid-fidelity prototypes.
Key issues identified:
Museum hours & location continued to feel buried among lots of content
The “Plan Your Visit” section felt overloaded, making museum hours & location to feel buried among content
Exhibition detail pages felt overwhelming due to amount of information
Ticket purchase flow felt long & users wanted options to save or share ticket information directly from the confirmation page
Final Prototype
In the final prototype, we directly addressed these issues:
Reduced content overload by refining hierarchy and removing unnecessary duplication
Reworked the ticket purchase flow to be faster and more seamless, with clearer steps and improved confirmation actions
Clarified navigation paths to make essential information easier to find
Simplified exhibition pages to improve readability and comprehension
The final experience allows users to move through the site with greater confidence and less hesitation across both mobile and desktop.
What I Learned
Designing for a museum isn’t about speed or conversion, it’s about trust.
When visitors feel guided, they feel welcome. And that sense of orientation often begins long before they walk through the door.
