Reimagining a Beloved Cultural Destination

Within three weeks of launch, the redesigned digital experience system demonstrated measurable improvements across every key visitor behavior: 

Beyond the metrics, the new system fundamentally changed how the Gardner operates online:

• Operational efficiency: Staff can now find and update content without external search tools, reducing technical dependencies and accelerating publication cycles
• Foundation for iteration: Clear analytics, accessible components, and logical content structure enable ongoing testing and optimization based on visitor behavior
• Inclusive access: WCAG 2.2 AA compliance extended reach to visitors with disabilities while improving usability for everyone
• Strategic content pathways: Improved architecture creates discovery opportunities, extending engagement beyond transactional tasks to collection content, exhibitions, and membership

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is one of Boston’s most distinctive cultural institutions. Founded by Isabella Stewart Gardner herself, the Museum offers an intimate, unconventional art experience—no labels, personal curation, and a transportive environment that defies typical museum expectations.

For an institution built on intentionality and access, digital experience shapes whether people visit, how they prepare, and whether they return. When the Museum’s website became a barrier rather than a bridge, they needed a partner who could modernize their digital experience system without erasing what makes the Gardner extraordinary.

The Gardner’s digital presence had become operationally unsustainable and strategically misaligned:

• Internal navigation failures: Staff routinely used Google to find content on their own website, signaling fundamental architecture problems
• Accessibility gaps: The site failed WCAG 2.2 AA standards, excluding visitors with disabilities and contradicting the Museum’s commitment to inclusive access
• Scattered information architecture: Exhibition details, ticketing, and visitor resources lacked clear relationships or pathways, creating friction at critical decision moments
• Inflexible content management: The component system forced workarounds that undermined performance and brand coherence

These systemic barriers prevented the Museum from achieving core digital objectives: inspiring visits, supporting trip planning, and extending engagement beyond the physical experience.

Oomph designed and implemented a comprehensive digital experience system—a fundamental rearchitecture of how the Museum operates online:

• Strategic alignment: Stakeholder workshops across departments established shared priorities, success metrics, and institutional identity through synthesis of member surveys, analytics, and internal insights
• User-centered architecture: Mapped visitor journeys for key personas—Museum Members, first-time ticket buyers, on-site visitors, and online researchers—ensuring structure supported real tasks
• Information architecture transformation: Rebuilt navigation and menu hierarchy from the ground up, validated through TreeJack testing before visual design
• Accessibility-first component system: Developed component library meeting WCAG 2.2 AA standards, proving accessibility and aesthetic excellence reinforce each other
• “Gentle elegance” design philosophy: Translated the Gardner’s intimate character into digital form through subtle details—lace patterns and mosaic elements—that inject personality without overwhelming content
• Strategic page redesigns: Reimagined Visit page balances practical planning information with pathways to deeper content exploration
• Performance infrastructure: Built technical foundation for speed, reliability, and long-term maintainability

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum now operates a digital experience system that reflects its institutional values—intimate, intentional, and accessible to all.

The platform performs measurably better across every key visitor behavior. The Museum’s team has infrastructure that supports their mission with clear pathways for ongoing optimization as visitor needs evolve.

The Gardner’s digital presence now prepares visitors for an extraordinary experience, removes barriers to access, and extends the Museum’s distinctive character beyond its physical walls.

Cultural institutions must honor their distinct identity while meeting contemporary expectations for digital access and usability. The Gardner demonstrates how these priorities reinforce rather than conflict.

By treating digital experience as an integrated system, Oomph helped the Gardner build infrastructure that scales with their mission—creating operational capacity to measure, learn, and continuously improve how they serve visitors online.

This transformation moves metrics: measurable engagement growth, operational efficiency, and strategic flexibility. More fundamentally, it builds systems that help organizations do their most important work better.