In 2026, website accessibility has shifted from a “best practice” to a strictly codified legal requirement. New federal and state regulations have eliminated previous ambiguities, making WCAG 2.1 Level AA the mandatory technical standard for digital content.

1. The 2026 Enforcement Cliff

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized a rule under Title II of the ADA that sets a firm compliance deadline for many entities:

• April 24, 2026: Deadline for public entities (and many private partners) serving populations of 50,000 or more to achieve full WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance.
• April 26, 2027: Deadline for smaller entities.
• Private Sector Impact: While the DOJ rule focuses on public entities, it solidifies WCAG 2.1 AA as the de-facto legal standard for private businesses in Title III lawsuits, which saw a 102% increase in recent years.

2. Why WCAG 2.1 Level AA?

Unlike older versions, WCAG 2.1 includes 17 additional criteria specifically designed for mobile accessibility and users with cognitive disabilities. Compliance is measured by the “POUR” Principles:

• Perceivable: Users must be able to see or hear content (e.g., Alt-Text for images, captions for video).
• Operable: The site must work without a mouse (e.g., Keyboard-only navigation, no keyboard traps).
• Understandable: Content must be predictable with clear error messaging on forms.
• Robust: Code must be “clean” enough to work with all current and future assistive technologies, like screen readers.

3. Critical 2026 Compliance Risks

• No “Grandfathering” for New Content: Any digital asset (PDFs, videos, or web pages) posted after April 2026 must be compliant from day one.
• Vendor Liability: Business owners are legally responsible for their website’s accessibility, even if they use third-party platforms or templates.
• Inadequacy of “Overlay” Widgets: The DOJ has clarified that automated widgets or “overlays” alone cannot guarantee ADA compliance; true accessibility requires fixing the underlying code.
• California-Specific Penalties: Under California’s Unruh Act, businesses can face statutory damages of $4,000+ per violation in addition to federal ADA settlements.

4. Future-Proofing: Looking Toward WCAG 3.0

While WCAG 2.1/2.2 is the current law, WCAG 3.0 is in development (expected no earlier than 2028). It will move from a pass/fail model to a Bronze, Silver, and Gold scoring system. Achieving WCAG 2.1 Level AA now effectively places an organization at the “Bronze” level, providing a solid foundation for future shifts.

Is your website ready for the April 2026 deadline? Achieving WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance requires more than a quick fix — it means addressing the underlying code, auditing every digital asset, and building accessibility into your process from the ground up. Whether you’re starting an audit, planning remediation, or building something new, get in touch with our team to start the conversation.

Overview

The Challenge

The voluntary carbon market had a visibility problem. Carbon offsets represent a powerful tool for individual climate action, but public awareness remained low. Most people didn’t understand what carbon offsets were, why they mattered, or how to purchase them confidently.

Rare needed more than a website. They needed a digital experience system that could:

• Educate and convert users unfamiliar with carbon markets
• Publish and iterate content quickly as they tested messaging and engagement strategies
• Scale efficiently without recurring platform constraints or cost bloat
• Maintain design and message consistency across all content and user journeys

The existing infrastructure couldn’t support this level of agility or growth. Rare needed a modern platform built for continuous improvement, not static delivery.

The Approach

What This Made Possible

The new platform gave Rare the operational infrastructure to:

• Test and refine messaging at speed, publishing new content and campaign pages without platform delays
• Scale outreach efforts efficiently, supported by a design system that maintains quality and consistency across growth
• Reduce editorial and technical dependencies, empowering the team to manage content, flows, and user experiences independently
• Build user trust through clarity, with educational content and conversion flows designed to meet users where they are

By decoupling content from code, Rare gained the flexibility to respond to user feedback, market conditions, and organizational priorities in real time—without platform friction or cost escalation.

The Result

Why This Matters

Overview

For over twenty years, RepTrak has been the go-to provider for reputation data and insights, helping organizations understand and improve their corporate reputation. With their flagship Global RepTrak 100 report, RepTrak offers an annual definitive ranking of corporate reputation for the world’s leading companies, providing valuable benchmarks that influence strategic decisions and stakeholder relationships.

The RepTrak Platform draws on the world’s largest reputation database with over 20 years of data. Their reputation scores serve as a leading indicator, allowing teams to interpret constantly updating streams of reputation, brand, ESG, and media data.

RepTrak’s Home and Global RepTrak 100 Landing Page are their most important lead generators, making it imperative to get these digital experiences right.

Key results

The Challenge

The Global RepTrak 100 report is more than just data — it’s a definitive ranking system recognized industry-wide that reinforces RepTrak’s leadership in the reputation industry. Their homepage demands similar attention as the first or second touchpoint for leads.

The challenge was to design landing pages that not only met the aesthetic and functional needs of their users but also reinforced RepTrak’s brand as a trusted and authoritative source. With the report being their top lead generator for the year, the landing page needed to be engaging, fast-loading, and seamlessly integrated into their Contentful site.

Beyond aesthetics for outside visitors, their internal team required Contentful modeling conducive to empowering Content Managers, guidance on technical integrations, and a new design system.

The Approach

Redefining Technical Support

With any project, proper guidance is an often overlooked prerequisite. It’s fairly common to “know what you want” and have no idea how to get there. It’s even more common to “know what you want” and for that journey to achieve the “want” be ill-advised. Without the outside perspective of a technical solutions partner, internal biases and inefficiencies multiply.

We approached this project interdisciplinary and agile. Assuming the role of impartial confidant, we were able to give the RepTrak team objective recommendations, allowing us to focus on speed with a collaborative touch.

Collaborative and Strategic Design

The Home and Global RepTrak 100 landing page received a complete overhaul, designed to elevate user experience, increase engagement, and drive conversions. Not to mention, make content editing and management easier for all parties internally.

The redesigned landing page is a testament to our collaborative efforts with RepTrak, merging aesthetics with functionality. By focusing on user experience and leveraging Contentful’s robust capabilities, we created a page that not only highlights the significance of the Global RepTrak 100 report but also aligns with RepTrak’s brand values and business goals.

The design features intuitive navigation, clear calls to action, and visually appealing elements that draw attention to key insights from the report. We also incorporated responsive design principles to ensure the page performs well across devices, catering to a global audience.

The Results

The redesign delivered measurable impact on RepTrak’s most important lead generation channels. Report downloads increased by 6% and conversions saw an impressive 40% year-over-year boost.

The new landing page is not just a one-time update — it’s a strategic investment in RepTrak’s digital presence. By ensuring a seamless and engaging experience, we’ve laid the groundwork for future enhancements that will extend to other areas of their Contentful site.

[Oomph] truly understood how important this report was to the company and helped us build something that can be translated across our website — so every piece we release can be just as powerful.

— Bianca Martucci-FiNk, Director of Global Content Marketing, The RepTrak Company

A website is the cornerstone of your brand’s digital presence. It communicates who you are, what you offer, and why customers should trust you. In today’s digital-first marketplace, your website is often the first, and sometimes only, impression a prospective customer will have of your business. That makes maintaining it not just a technical task, but a strategic business priority.

Owning a website is a long-term investment. It reflects your brand, reputation, values, and offerings, and it directly influences key performance indicators (KPIs) such as lead generation, conversions, and customer engagement. Consider how much time and budget go into designing and building a website. Once the site goes live, the work doesn’t end there; ongoing maintenance is critical to ensure it continues to run optimally.

The risks of neglecting website maintenance are extensive. Common issues include:

Security Vulnerabilities

• Outdated software, plugins, or CMS cores are prime targets for hackers.
• Data breaches and malware infections can cause reputational harm and legal consequences under GDPR/CCPA.
  

Website Downtime or Broken Functionality

• Incompatibility between themes, plugins, and core updates can cause errors.
• Features such as forms, checkout, or search may stop working.
• Downtime often results in lost revenue and poor user experience.
  

Slow Performance

• Slow load times drive users away and increase bounce rates.
• Performance issues also negatively impact SEO and conversions.
  

SEO Ranking Loss

• Google penalizes sites with broken links, outdated content, slow speeds, and security warnings.
• Dropped rankings reduce organic traffic and visibility.
  

Incompatibility with New Browsers & Devices

• Without updates, sites may not display correctly on modern browsers, mobile devices, or assistive technologies.
• This degrades accessibility and excludes segments of your audience.
  

Poor Analytics & Marketing Integration

• Broken or outdated tracking scripts produce inaccurate analytics data.
• Failed conversion tracking undermines ROI measurement and marketing opportunities.
  

Higher Long-Term Costs

• Neglected fixes can escalate into costly rebuilds.
• Emergency remediation is significantly more expensive than preventative care.
  

Brand Reputation & Trust

• Errors or outdated content signal neglect.
• Visitors may assume the business is unreliable, making trust difficult to regain.

The ROI of Regular Website Maintenance

Proper maintenance is a business-critical investment with measurable ROI. Regular updates and monitoring strengthen security, preserve performance, ensure compliance with accessibility standards, and protect user experience. With a clear process in place, maintenance safeguards your digital presence, reduces costs, and supports outcomes such as improved lead generation, e-commerce revenue, and stronger brand trust.

Here’s a breakdown of the ROI across multiple dimensions:

• Reduced emergency costs: Preventative maintenance is far cheaper than emergency fixes. Recovering from a hack, data loss, or system failure can cost 3–5x more than routine upkeep.
• Sustained SEO rankings and traffic: A well-maintained website performs better in search results. Search engines penalize slow, outdated, or broken sites, while optimized ones attract and retain more visitors.
• Improved user experience and conversions: Fast, functional websites reduce friction. HubSpot reports that 88% of users are less likely to return after a poor online experience.
  
• Lower risk of security incidents: Regular patching of CMS cores, plugins, and dependencies reduces exposure to cyberattacks.
• Extended site lifespan: While most websites are redesigned every 2–3 years, consistent updates and optimizations can significantly extend their useful life.
  

Why Start Early

It’s important to begin discussing website maintenance with your agency during the planning stages of a new site, as it can influence technical decisions and long-term requirements. Maintenance packages vary depending on your team’s resources, and a trusted agency partner can help define core tasks, expectations, and responsibilities. For organizations with tighter budgets, we’ve also seen success with automated solutions that handle routine updates.

Maintenance as Business Insurance

Website maintenance is more than applying updates—it’s business insurance.

Organizations need to uphold security, performance, accessibility, SEO, GDPR compliance, and other standards that directly affect user experience and, in many cases, legal obligations. Working with Oomph ensures these processes are streamlined, proactive, and aligned with your business goals. If you’re looking to protect your digital investment, let’s explore a maintenance approach tailored to your team’s needs. Learn more about our maintenance services.

THE BRIEF

THE CHALLENGE

MULTIPLE COUNTRIES AND A GLOBAL OPTION

SIX LANGUAGES

MANY 3RD-PARTY INTEGRATIONS

THE APPROACH

LEARN VS. SHOP

Supporting Visitor Intention with Two Different Modes

While the technical challenges were being worked out, the user experience and design had to reflect a cutting-edge company. With the launch of their revolutionary product, the BLK 360, in 2018, Leica positioned itself as the Apple of the geospatial measurement community — sleek, cool, cutting-edge and easy to use. While many companies want to look as good as Apple, few of them actually have the content and product to back it up.

The navigation for the site went through many rounds of feedback and testing before deciding on something radically simple — Learn or Shop. A customer on the website is either in an exploratory state of mind — browsing, comparing, reviewing pricing and specifications — or they are ready to buy. We made it very clear which part of the website was for which.

This allowed us to talk directly to the customer in two very different ways. On the Learn side, the pages educate and convince. They give the customer information about the product, reviews, articles, sample data files, and the like. The content is big, sleek, and leverages video and other embedded content, like VR, to educate.

On the Shop side the pages are unapologetically transactional. Give the visitor the right information to support a purchase, clearly deliver specs and options like software and warranties, without any marketing. We could assume the customer was here to purchase, not to be convinced, so the page content could concentrate on order completion. The entire checkout process was simplified as much as possible to reduce friction. Buying habits and patterns of their user base over the past few site iterations were studied to inform our choices about where to simplify and where to offer options.

THE RESULTS

Museum websites have a unique duality. Unlike many other digital platforms, their primary goal is to encourage visitors to come in person. Their website may feature engaging articles or archives, cool virtual experiences, or highlight important research, but the physical space remains the heart of the museum, home to priceless collections and host to educational tours and programs. While the digital experience is still an essential one, the main objective of most museums is to welcome people through their doors. 

That is why the Visit section of a museum website is extra important. Visitors are looking for a single page that clearly outlines everything they need to know: admission prices and hours, what they can and can’t bring, accommodations for nursing mothers or individuals with disabilities, and so much more. Then again, different people need to know different information, so how do you keep everything together without it ballooning out of control? Despite its importance, many museum websites miss the opportunity to provide clear, concise, and accessible visit information in one central place.

A Survey of Website Visit Page Trends for Museums 

As part of a recent engagement with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, we conducted a cohort analysis of other leading museum and cultural organization websites. The study focused on key elements of museum digital platforms including menu design, navigation, and the Prepare for your Visit page. We noticed a theme that several Visit pages on museum websites felt like long, endless scrolls. They’re often filled with lots of information, but a lack of structure or thoughtful design makes them difficult to quickly parse. Through this exercise of finding what is and isn’t working well and questioning why, we walked away with a strong sense of what makes a successful Visit page. 

Answer Visitors’ Top Questions

Who, what, where, when, how. When thinking about what information should be contained on the Visit page, these timeless questions are a strategic starting point. Though simple, they are the questions visitors will ask themselves before they arrive at the museum. These questions can take many forms, but for the Visit page, we’re prioritizing logistics:

• Where is the museum located? 
• What does it cost? 
• When is it open? 
• How do I get there? 
• Who can come along? 

If you are writing the content for this page, start by answering these key questions. 

You may have your content set, but you also need to think about how it is prioritized through strategic page design. You should make sure that the most important information (usually hours and admission prices) is at the top of the page and always visible. Don’t hide this information in accordions. And even if your admission is always free, point that out. Visitors want to have that information before they visit your museum, so make sure it is clearly stated. After all, free or reduced pricing is often an enticing reason for many to come!

Despite what you may think, duplicating some key content in different locations across your website can be helpful, as long as it doesn’t get confusing. Just because you have the hours on the homepage, doesn’t mean you should skip it on the Visit page. Presenting the information in different formats can also be helpful. For example, MoMA’s visitor guide provides a contained experience which includes a lot of content that can be found elsewhere on the site, but organized for a particular need (someone coming to the museum now).

Strike the Balance between Enough and Too Much with Accordions

Nearly every Visit page we studied used accordions. When you’re looking at a long list of content, the option of tucking away big chunks of it into a collapsable block sounds pretty appealing. That said, there are ways to do it well and plenty of ways it can go wrong.

Whenever you use an accordion, you’re asking users to click or tap to see more. While requiring an action like this can be a nice way to keep visitors engaged, whatever they see before interacting needs to accurately represent what’s inside. Let’s say a user wants to know whether they can carry a backpack around the museum. A generic heading — like “Guidelines” — doesn’t speak to its contents and the user could easily overlook it. Accordions that are organized well and labeled clearly — more like ”What You Can Bring in the Gallery” — can improve content organization and reduce cognitive load.

Also take care to make sure that the accordions are built in a way that everyone can use them. Test them with a screen reader and navigate through with only your keyboard to make sure they are meeting accessibility standards.

Our recommendation: use accordions, but strategically. Don’t have more than 7 or 8 and never add essential information there that visitors would be looking for at a quick glance. 

Guidelines & Policies

One large category that sometimes stumps museum stakeholders is where to put all the guidelines and policies that they often need to state, sometimes even for legal protections. Oftentimes these get lumped into a large accordion or series of accordions on the Visit page, without the key policies pulled out and clearly stated for visitors looking for quick guidance on whether strollers are allowed in the galleries or whether they can take photos with their new fancy camera. 

Particularly when you have an extensive list of guidelines, a successful approach can be linking to a larger guidelines and policies page with the information organized by clear headings and categories (which is also good for SEO/GEO), as seen on The Frick’s website. Just remember our earlier point about duplicate content: For essential guidelines, such as bags and security policies, consider also including this information on the main Visit page.

Help Visitors Plan Their Day

Planning your Visit is a big topic and depending on your museum’s particular offerings, might encompass a lot. Preparing ahead can include everything from directions and parking, what’s on view, amenities (dining, shopping), types of tours offered and at what times, etc. The goal for this content is to make it easy for visitors on the day of their visit, both logistically and emotionally. At the end of the day, you want visitors to get the most out of their time at the museum. Assess what is considered essential information that should be included on the main Visit page, but also what might warrant getting its own subpage. This is where in-page linking can be your best friend. 

• Setting Expectations — Setting the right expectations is especially important when a museum provides an experience that deviates from the norm. For the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, for instance, they do not have wall labels for every object on display and instead rely on audio and room guides accessible via QR codes throughout the Museum. In their use case, making sure visitors know to bring headphones and have a fully charged phone is key information that may not be applicable to other cultural organizations, nor assumed by visitors before arriving.
• Themed Itineraries — One trend we uncovered in our cohort analysis is the rise of themed itineraries, giving visitors different ways to experience a museum. When creating these, consider what makes your museum unique and the audience groups you want to serve. For example, if you have a garden, you might design a “Garden Lover” itinerary that highlights outdoor spaces alongside artworks featuring landscapes or floral still lifes. Or, if time is the constraint, you could offer a one-hour itinerary like MoMA’s thoughtfully titled “The Unmissables.”
• Keeping the Delightful — In our conversations with museum stakeholders and throughout our cohort analysis, we learned that it’s common for most visitors to arrive at a museum having done very little, if any, preparation about the type of experience they will receive. Though every museum operates a little differently and has its own quirks, people come thinking they know what to expect based on past experiences. The resulting surprise can be anywhere from delightful to disorienting. Balancing the element of surprise with the right amount of logistical information for expectation setting can be a challenge, but hopefully a fun one to think through.

Prioritize an Easy Mobile Experience 

Visitors often state that they want to “disconnect” while at a museum. They might be happy to pull out their phone for a photo, but otherwise want to spend their time and energy on the physical space around them. We truly love that for them, but also know that the website can, at times, meaningfully enhance the visitor experience. When thinking about what types of content should be considered from a mobile-first perspective, these come to mind:

• Maps — Include key features like restrooms and elevators. Enable common gestures like pinch-to-zoom and panning. Bonus points if the map is interactive, for example letting the user tap on a gallery to see what’s in it.
• Audio Guides — Provide basic controls, including play/pause, skip forward and backward (e.g. 15 seconds), and speed control. Let users access the transcript for greater accessibility.
• Artwork Information — This is especially important in the instance, like at the Gardner, where wall labels are not displayed in-situ and visitors are encouraged to access these via their phone in the galleries. They’ve addressed the need with digital Room Guides.

Ultimately, any content that is meant to be accessed while at the museum — member login and event schedule, for example — needs to be optimized for mobile. It’s especially important for this content to be easy to use and navigable on a small screen. We don’t want visitors to get lost in their phones or frustrated and ultimately give up. It needs to be intuitive to be a smooth piece of the whole experience.

Building a Successful Visit Page for Museums

Similar to building a successful navigation for a museum website, the first task of any organization looking to refresh their Visit page is to put yourself in the shoes of your visitors. Come up with a few key user journeys for various audiences. What would a family with small children need to know before coming to the museum? How about a person who requires a wheelchair or someone with low vision? What information would a student be searching the Visit page for? 

Beyond walking through the experience first-hand yourself, it helps to get an outside perspective. If you have the means to talk to visitors while they’re on-site, that can lead to some fascinating insights on their in-gallery experience. However, know that you’ll most likely encounter a positive bias in their responses. Not only are they enjoying a day at the museum, but it can be tough to give critical feedback to someone standing right in front of them. 

To counter that bias, gather feedback from additional sources: pop-up or email surveys, controlled usability testing, and website analytics. All of that data together can help give you the building blocks to ensure your visit page strikes the balance between being engaging and informative. By prioritizing clarity, accessibility, and thoughtful design, museums can ensure that visitors arrive knowledgeably at ease and excited to explore. 

A well-crafted Visit page is more than just a logistics hub, it’s the digital admissions desk of your museum.

When done right, it reduces friction, answers essential questions, and sets the stage for a memorable in-person experience. Ultimately, the Visit page isn’t just about driving attendance, it’s about shaping the visitor’s journey from the very first click to the moment they step through your doors.

Learn more about building a successful Visit page in a Case Study of our 2025 Re-Architecture project for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

By Rachel Heidenry & Rachel Hart

Museum websites are beautifully complex. As the digital counterpart to a physical space, they serve many essential functions. They must reflect the museum’s mission and values, while guiding users clearly to key areas of information. Museums with collections often need dedicated sections for research and archives; zoos may focus on telling the stories of their animals; and contemporary art institutions sometimes even use their sites as platforms for artists to showcase new work. At the same time, nearly all museum websites must serve practical needs like selling tickets or memberships, promoting events or fundraisers, and providing essential visitor information, like hours and directions.

Managing that much critical and varied information is a challenge for any website, which is why strong information architecture (IA) is essential. A successful navigation should be intuitive and accessible, with clear labels and well-organized categories.

Mobile-responsiveness is also crucial, especially for visitors who need quick access to find information, like admission prices or the current exhibitions, or who want to purchase tickets on the go.

For cultural organizations, a strong menu and navigation system is arguably the most important indicator of a successful website. 

A Survey of Website Navigation Trends for Art Museums 

While not all cultural organizations prioritize aesthetics, art museums inherently do. As institutions dedicated to the presentation of art, they think critically about how visual design shapes their brand identity. In some cases, aesthetics can overshadow usability, resulting in beautiful or cutting-edge websites that are ultimately difficult for both internal staff members and external visitors to navigate. 

As part of a recent engagement with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, we conducted a cohort analysis of other leading museum websites. The study focused on key elements of art museum digital platforms including menu design, navigation, content organization, and user flows. One striking insight was that many art museum websites avoid dropdown menus, instead favoring a simple list of four or five top-level categories. These are often labeled with opaque or “insider” terms, raising questions like: What does “Programs” signify? Does “Art” lead to the permanent collection or temporary exhibitions? Does the general population know the difference? And where in the world is the museum’s blog? 

Let’s take a look at the building blocks of a site’s navigation and what we learned from reviewing a cohort of cultural institution websites.

Utility Navigation

The utility navigation should help visitors quickly access essential information. As the name suggests, the utility navigation traditionally contains tools and actions (like login, search, and language select) that help visitors use the website. You’ll typically see it as a secondary list of items above the main menu, often in a smaller font. 

When deciding what to include in it, consider your primary visitors’ goals: What do they need to know or do on your website? Museums often use the utility navigation to drive high-value actions like purchasing tickets or memberships. Our analysis also showed that museums with online shops frequently included links to the store or member login portals when relevant. In general, it’s best practice to limit the utility navigation to 2-4 key items, not including search.

• Open/Closed Status — More museum websites are starting to include an open/closed status directly in the utility navigation, as demonstrated by The Huntington’s website. This enhancement directly improves user experience and is particularly valuable on mobile where this status sits at the very top of the page. (Some museums, like MoMA, include this status elsewhere on the homepage which is a second best option).
• Tickets, Tickets, Tickets — For most museums, ticket sales or memberships drive revenue. Our findings show that successful museum websites don’t shy away from putting that fact front and center, with optimal placement in the utility navigation as simply “Tickets” and “Join.” Even better is if the “Tickets” link/button stands out through a distinctive design or unique brand color, like this pop of yellow on the MFA Boston’s website that makes the button unmissable. 

The Dropdown or Mega Menu

Museums have a lot of content. And the larger the institution, the more content its website undoubtedly has to provide visitors. Our analysis showed that institutions that embrace the dropdown menu are overall easier to navigate and more often mobile-friendly. The bottom line: you don’t want visitors to your website to have to go down rabbit holes to find essential information.

• Dropdown Usability — Just having dropdowns on your menu isn’t enough. You still need to make sure the design is usable and accessible. Make sure you can move your mouse around without losing your place, and that you can navigate through menu items only using a keyboard. Mega menus provide the space for further grouping of sub-items or helpful descriptive text, but don’t fill them with too much or you risk overwhelming users. A well-designed menu dropdown can even take the place of a top-level landing page for the section, a pattern we saw on several museum websites.
• Menu Subpages — If you do have dropdown menus, be strategic about what pages you feature in the subnavigation. Resist including every single website subpage—many museums unfortunately attempt to accommodate too many categories. With competing departments and stakeholders, limiting selections sometimes proves challenging, but aim for 3-6 subpages. To supplement, you can create deeper content tiers within sections themselves and rely on structured in-page linking to help users discover additional site content.

Categories & Language

A navigation menu requires words (obviously). These are among the first words anyone sees when they land on your website. Thus they set the tone and expectation for what kind of museum you are, while also telling the story of what someone can do both on-site and online. Making sure the words that comprise the navigation are distinctive, accessible, and concise is key.

• Titles & Character Counts — Sometimes the hardest part of finalizing a navigation is agreeing on the words that comprise it. You might have figured out the general categories, but should you call the permanent collection “Collection” or “Art” or something else entirely? User testing provides essential validation and can help museum stakeholders move beyond insider terminology towards language that resonates with broader audiences. Whatever category headings you land on, consider length carefully. You rarely want to have more than 2 words and definitely strive to stay under 20 characters. 
• “What’s On” — Many museum sites are adopting the “What’s On” category to capture Events and Exhibitions together. This colloquium is already widely used for British museums and reflects a more casual and (arguably) approachable language. If you’re considering this category title, think about your particular audience and if that phrase will resonate with visitors. Keeping it classic with “Exhibitions” or “Events” is perfectly fine too and is still widely in use. 

Hamburger Menu

To keep the main navigation simple and clean, some museums, like The Barnes Foundation, opt to put additional links behind a hamburger menu, even at desktop widths. In this way, less significant information does not busy up the navigation, but visitors can still intuitively click through to find other key subpages. If you do this, be sure to still repeat the top level menu items, as this pop-out navigation will become your mobile view.

• Collapsed Menus — Whether hamburger menus, accordions, or other collapsible components, make sure that the most important information is always visible. Though most users these days recognize and understand the hamburger menu icon, hiding menu items behind a click or tap means they might be overlooked. Whether on desktop or mobile, determine what highly important items (like today’s hours or a link to purchase tickets) should always be visible on the page.
• Side Menus — Many websites use side menus to help users navigate to deeply nested content, but these constrain available width and cut into key page content. For museums who pay close attention to how the website looks and how images are being displayed, this may be reason enough to avoid this solution. If ensuring that artwork images are never cropped or obstructed is part of your acceptance criteria, this is not the route for your site. If you choose to forego the side menu, take care to help visitors move through the deeper content on your site with another solution, like a horizontal subnavigation bar or structured on-page links.
  

Conclusion: Building a Successful Navigation for Museums

If you are a cultural institution that is starting to rethink your website navigation, the first step is to put yourself in the shoes of your visitor. It’s critical to put aside internal org charts and take a user-centered design approach. Come up with a few key user journeys for various audiences. How would a first-time visitor purchase a ticket? How would a repeat visitor find more information about a particular work of art they loved? And then navigate your site as your user would. What are the pain points? What works well? What makes absolutely no sense at all? 

Once you’ve done that, be sure to take a step back from your website to see what types of content you have and the common ways they might intersect. This is important for establishing the key categories of your site, as well as its subcategories. You’ll often be surprised at the connections you can make and the overlaps in content that can be streamlined together. 

From there, you have the building blocks to start conceptualizing your new navigation, one that is usable, clear, and beautifully intuitive. Learn more about building a successful navigation in a Case Study of our 2025 Re-Architecture project for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Key Outcomes

The Organization

The Challenge

The Approach

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 Result

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.

Why This Matters

The Brief

The APPROACH

The Results

THE CHALLENGE

OUR APPROACH

THE RESULTS

The Brief

The Approach

Human responses feel human

With the rise of AI and Google’s AI-generated search results, our design reinforced the humanity and empathy of GAA! by establishing a clear “Dear Alice” with a unique handwritten font and response from the author. When dealing with potentially sensitive and health-threatening answers, an authentic human voice is essential, and one that puts answers into context — is this thing I am asking about “normal”? What are the additional considerations I should know about? And so on. AI might give you one answer, but it won’t contain the context and nuance these anonymous human-generated questions require.

Unique Colors & Illustrations

Blue is strongly associated with Columbia Health and prevented the previous site from standing independently. Our design reduced focus on blue and shifted the site’s primary colors to maroon and yellow. Several other colors create wayfinding paths associated with answer topics. Scrolling the All Topics category page becomes a delightfully random color experience.

All color combinations adhere to WCAG 2.2 guidelines for Level AA, increasing the accessibility of this color-rich site for all visitors. 

A new set of illustrations curates a sense of inclusivity better than stock photos could. A wide variety of humans were chosen to represent the diversity of student populations. Little details, like the randomized person in the site’s footer, add a sense of surprise and delight to the entire browsing experience.

The Results

THE BRIEF

THE APPROACH

Multiple color themes

Site authors choose from five color themes, each supporting light and dark mode viewing. Every theme was rigorously tested to conform with WCAG AA (and sometimes AAA), with each theme based on a palette of 27 colors (including grays) and 12 transparent colors.

User preferences

Site visitors can toggle between light or dark mode or use their own system preference, along with adjusting font sizes, line height, word spacing, and default language.

Mobile first

Knowing that many site visitors will be on mobile devices, each design component treats the mobile experience as a first-class counterpart to desktop.

Examples: The section menu sticks to the left side of the view port for easy access within sections; Downloads are clearly labelled with file type and human-readable file sizes in case someone has an unreliable network connection; galleries appear on mobile with any text labels stacked underneath and support swipe gestures, while the desktop version layers text over images and supports keyboard navigation.

High Accessibility

Every design pattern is accessible for screen readers and mobile devices. Color contrast, keyboard navigation, semantic labeling, and alt text enforcement all contribute to a highly accessible site. Extra labels and help text have been added to add context to actions, while also following best practices for use of ARIA attributes.

Performance aware

Each page is given a performance budget, so design components are built as lightly as possible, using the least amount of code and relying on the smallest visual asset file sizes possible.

THE RESULTS