Essay Example on Museums: Exploring the Online Offerings of Two Prestigious Institutions

A museum is an institute that is specialized in carrying and gathering objects of historical, cultural, scientific, and artistic significance. Once the items have been collected, they are made presented for public viewing during exhibitions. In this paper, the following websites, "https://www.amnh.org" and "https://www.si.edu," will be compared and contrasted. The websites provide useful information about the objects preserved in them, giving virtual tours as well as educating the public, among other things. The efficiency of a website is displayed by characteristics such as layout, outlook, usability, content, and its general representation. More discussions and comparisons of these websites are presented herein.

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The American Museum of Natural History was founded in 1869 and is found in the city of New York (Amnh.org). Being among the world's distinguished scientific and cultural institute, it has continued to spread its overall mission of discovering, interpreting, and propagating information on the natural world, human cultures, and the universe. In doing the above, the museum has several programs ranging from education, exhibition, and scientific research. While on the other hand, the Smithsonian is an institution founded in the year 1846, is composed of 19 museums and a National Zoo ("Smithsonian Homepage"). The Smithsonian has specialized in preserving the human heritage, discovery of new knowledge as well as sharing of the discovered resources with the rest of the world. The museums have some of the rarest artifacts and things that would not be found in other museums around the world. Some of these include the dinosaurs of different types and many other things that can easily be found through analysis and search on the websites. However, the best experience is achieved from the physical visitation of these museums.

The homepage of a website is a company's face to the world (Nielsen et al. 45). The homepage is therefore required to provide a captivating experience of the company. The logo also plays an essential role in improving brand awareness and clearly distinguishing it from the competing entities and provide some acquaintance to the users. A website is designed with features that are meant to keep viewers tied up on the website for relatively long periods. The American Museum of Natural History is the most cultivating website given the above details. However, in terms of the appeal of the logo, the Smithsonian website is outstanding. The websites have background colors in which some of the features are highlighted in bold and various colors. Both websites have virtual tour tabs that enable visitors to take self-guided visits to the museums. The virtual allows them to move from one room to another for the given exhibits at the comfort of the visitor's mobile phone or desktop (Helmuth et al. 2). The virtual tour capability has been maximally used during this covid-19 pandemic, which led to the closure of the museums. From the virtual tours, further educating the visitors has enhanced the public experience, and consequently, it has attracted a greater audience.

The Smithsonian website has an Open Access section, which enables one to download images without necessarily seeking permission from the museum. On this platform, about three million images are both 2D and 3D from the museum's collection (Kalfatovic et al. 267). In contrast, the American Museum of Natural History does not enable one to download images from it. Both websites have developed applications that allow one to access the activities being undertaken by the museums quickly.

The contents on the website of the American Museum of Natural History is relatively easy to read and to follow due to its simplicity and eloquence. For example, visit the website has been simplified with the provision of a detailed dropdown menu guide; plan your visit, exhibitions, learn and teach, explore, our research, calendar, join and support, and shop. Besides, becoming a member has been simplified by the introduction of an independent tab that, once followed, directs one on how to join the membership of the museum. On the other hand, the Smithsonian website has fewer items on the menu guide in which different features have been embedded in making accessing and navigating through the website a little bit more cumbersome and tiring. Only six tabs are on the menu guide. Unlike the American Museum of Natural History website in which the calendar is a menu itself, the calendar on the Smithsonian website can be accessed on the "What's on" menu. These menus may seem different, but they give the same kind of results. Depending on the user, it might be easier or difficult to use them. However, it does not take a long time to learn and realize how easy it is to use most of the features on the websites.

The websites of both museums are frequently updated with current information. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the websites have been used to share educative information to the public to help curb the spread of the virus. The information updated about the pandemic is part of the need to close the museums for safety and health concerns. The content is usually written by well-experienced scientists in their different fields of study (Wilson and Ross, 373). Apart from the articles regularly posted, photographs, as well as videos, are posted on the two websites. Users freely access most of the information found on both websites. Free access to information has been part of their mission of empowering the public and increasing their diffusion of knowledge and their ability to be innovative. Smithsonian, to be specific, has enabled the public to learn, explore, research, and more so innovate. This has inspired many people to have a better understanding of the world. Alternatively, the public was paying to pay for actual visits to the museums to learn. The websites are made such that they are user-friendly, and one can easily access what they need easily without having to struggle to get where the information they required is found. The user interface of the websites is direct and easy to use. Furthermore, they are educative and give further information that would have been challenging to find if the work was done through manual analysis.

The shop menu on the American Museum of Natural History homepage has several tabs when opened that makes online shopping from the museum an unforgettable experience. The tabs have been made such that a person will only go to a tab depending on the commodity he/she needs. The different tabs are the stores in which the various are sold. Some of the stories range from Dino stores, science, toys, clothing, books, and comic shop. While, on the Smithsonian website, online shopping is somehow tricky as the different shops are not on the website. All the commodities are placed under the same roof; it becomes the duty of the shopper to search the item needed. You will thus find more people shopping from the American Museum of Natural History mainly because of ease of access and the shopping made easy. The ease of making the purchases is efficient as buyers would have a more difficult time finding and locating some of the items with ease. Furthermore, it allows the person to determine the number of purchases they want to make while providing payment options. The favorable thing about them is that they are reputable since there is only one reputable and secure website through which one can make these purchases. Smithsonian website is an updated version of most websites that do not provide the same experience as it does.

Conclusion

In conclusion, any given organization needs to develop a website that improves the user experience. Besides, the general outlook of a website is essential in enticing more people to access it. The American Museum of Natural History has an attractive website and thus encouraging more visitors (Doering and Zahava, 74). However, the Open Access feature on the Smithsonian website has led to traffic of people visiting the website, and the visit tally is not based on the number of tickets sold. Comparing the two museums, Smithsonian museums had more visitors than the American Museum of Natural History. It is also essential to develop a website in which visitors are offered incentives like the open access on the Smithsonian website. Lastly, all the entities need to have their websites to improve the user experience.

Works Cited

Amnh.org. "American Museum of Natural History | New York City." American Museum of Natural History, 2020, https://www.amnh.org/. Accessed 16 June 2020.

Davey, Colin, and Thomas, a Lesser. The American Museum of Natural History and How it Got That Way. Fordham University Press, 2019.

Doering, Zahava D. "Strangers, Guests, Or Clients? Visitor Experiences in Museums". Curator: The Museum Journal, vol 42, no. 2, 1999, pp. 74-87. Wiley, doi:10.1111/j.2151-6952.1999.tb01132.x.

Helmuth, Cory, et al. "Designing a Virtual Tour and Virtual Exhibit Room for El Caño Archeological Museum and Park." (2020). https://web.cs.wpi.edu/~rek/Projects/El-Cano_Proposal.pdfKalfatovic, Martin R. et al. "Smithsonian Team Flickr: A Library, Archives, and Museums Collaboration in Web 2.0 Space". Archival Science, vol 8, no. 4, 2008, pp. 267-277. Springer Science and Business Media LLC, doi:10.1007/s10502-009-9089-y.

Nielsen, Jakob, Marie Tahir, and Marie Tahir. Homepage usability: 50 websites deconstructed. Vol. 50. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders, 2002.

Smithsonian Institution. "Smithsonian Homepage." Smithsonian Institution, 2020, https://www.si.edu.

Wilson, Ross. "Behind the Scenes of the Museum Website." Museum Management and Curatorship, vol 26, no. 4, 2011, pp. 373-389. Informa UK Limited, doi:10.1080/09647775.2011.603934.