Letting the artwork light up the screen

Museums are places people go to feel something

The National Gallery of Modern Art is not merely a museum. It is India's living memory of artistic excellence, run as a subordinate office to the Ministry of Culture and holding the best collection of modern and contemporary art in the country.

Websites, too often, are places people go to find information. MOLOG's task was to make NGMA's digital experience feel like the first kind of place. The artwork would be the protagonist. Everything else would serve it, not compete with it.

Visitors scan, they do not read

After research into the world's best museum sites and a survey of visitors, one finding shaped everything: visitors rarely read a museum's homepage from top to bottom. They scan for the images that resonate, then click to find out where that piece came from.

So the artwork became the biggest element on the site, and its caption became a call to action that mimics the card on the wall in the gallery. Navigation, text, background and social feeds were all given a minimalist treatment so they would not distract from the collection.

Designed in the browser, tested in the gallery

Rather than working with flat images, we developed the concepts as interactive HTML pages, so the institution could feel how they responded to real interactions and screen sizes.

Once signed off, we ran user testing inside the NGMA itself with students, working professionals and cultural connoisseurs. The designs and functionality tested strongly across every device.

Deliverables

• Brand and content strategy
• Website design and development
• Mobile app design and development
• 3D sculpture showcase section
• QR-based contactless ticketing
• Interactive gallery subpages
• Responsive design across all devices
• User testing at NGMA