Watts Gallery appointed Giant as its digital partner in 2014 to help drive new, younger visitors to the gallery from national and international markets; following a restoration project on the site. Since 2011, the gallery had seen a steady year-on-year decline in the number of visitors; a decrease that totalled more than 10k. We partnered with the gallery to address this decline by developing a digital presence that not only mirrored its on-site restoration but embedded the gallery firmly in the heart of the community by cultivating a loyal audience of repeat visitors.
The gallery relies solely on ticket sales and donations to be able to fund its learning programme and maintain the gallery. With an objective to increase the number of younger visitors, we carried out user research to gain a better understanding of why people attend the gallery and developed a set of personas with bespoke user journeys. We also integrated with Digitickets to streamline the process of purchasing tickets. This enables flexible ticketing and mobile options; all of which is tracked and reported within the Django CMS.
When Watts Gallery consulted Giant, the design of the website was rapidly becoming outdated. The infrastructure simply didn’t offer the required functionality and did not reflect the true nature of the gallery’s visitor experience. The navigation was disjointed and complicated with a lack of overall brand and image cohesion. The audience research helped to completely overhaul the user experience of the site. We carried out a card-sorting exercise to analyse what content and pages it could reuse and what would need to be developed from scratch. By stripping back to basics we developed a user experience that was streamlined and signposted the desired calls to action; to sell tickets and increase admissions.
Watts Gallery wanted to improve the profile of its on-site events in a bid to increase admissions. We redesigned the ‘What’s On’ section of the website so that seasonal events were promoted alongside the large number of recurring tours. These were often overlooked due to its date ranking format.
This enabled events to be categorised into: exhibitions and displays; workshops, courses and talks; friend and patrons events; special events. For instance, users can select courses and talks taking place in June.
We developed a fully integrated Content Management System to provide Watts Gallery with 100% control over their website and the flexibility it required for its ambitious expansion plans. To ensure the correct usability, we created a multi-tiered permission structure so each department could manage its own content.
We built the platform on the Django CMS which enables us to integrate with smart, enterprise-level solutions. User research identified that the donation journey could be improved to avoid people dropping off due to a complex process. We integrated with GoCardless and Paypal to provide donors with flexible payments that were familiar and simple to complete. This helps to drive conversions as well updating the gallery in line with the digital age.
In 2019, we redesigned the gallery’s new Artist’s Studio Museum Network website to create a directory of cultural institutions across the world, easily filterable and ultimately encouraging visits and footfall to each museum. Each museum has its own profile page to promote its exhibitions, as well as supporting images, videos and resources. An integration with Google maps also allows the user to easily plan their visit with useful information such as opening times.
Following the launch of the new website, Watts Gallery saw an initial uplift in unique visitors of 33%. The number of sessions also rose to 41%. In the first year, the website gained more than 12k visitors each month. This attributed to a rise in visitors to 50k, 47% of which were repeat visitors.
Acting as a digital ‘shop window’, the new website is now an efficient tool in encouraging users to visit the gallery. The improved usability of the ‘What’s On’ section, with a ‘Book Now button front and centre, contributed to a significant increase in ticket sales to an income of £106,291.
Average year on year increase in website visitors.
Number of admissions to the gallery since the new site was launched in 2014.
More than 7.5m in grants and donations since the launch of the new site.
