Getting to know your web users

Kevin Bacon: Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & HovePeter Pavement: Surface Impression

SURFACE IMPRESSION

brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk

• Old shared website with Brighton Libraries

• Built in Sharepoint

• Limited flexibility

• Prioritised organisational aims over audience needs

Researching our online audiences?

Three research questions before going to tender.

• What are they doing?• What do they want to do?• Who are they?

What are our audiences doing?

• Use of Google Analytics data

• Key finding: over 50% of pageviews took place on just 11 pages of website.

• But… what users are doing also reflects the constraints of the website.

What do our users want to?

• Question that emerged from Culture 24’s Let’s Get Real 2 project

• Used survey to enquire what users were trying to do on the site

• Key finding: most users wanted building specific info – less interested in RPM as a service

• But… what about those who don’t respond to the survey

Who are our users?

• Drew on Professor John Falk’s work on identity related motivational profiles

• Model that rejects demographic profiling in favour of a behavioural needs based model

• Explorers, Experience Seekers, Facilitators, Professionals / Hobbyists, Rechargers

EXPLORERS FACILITATORS

EXPERIENCE SEEKERS RECHARGERS

PROFESSIONALS / HOBBYISTS

John H. FalkIdentity and the Museum Visitor Experience (2009)

Design process

Results

• Greatly increased engagement: pageviews +18.5%; bounce rate -16.7%; session time +13.6%

• Increased visitor nos. in key walk-up periods eg. school holidays

• 4 x increase in online ticket sales to Royal Pavilion

Next steps

• Online shop

• International visitors

• More engagement with our online collections