Case Study
The Ukrainian Museum and Library, as the oldest Ukrainian cultural institution in the United States, is a vital pillar of cultural history, especially with the current war in Ukraine. Although it’s more important now than ever for people to access Ukrainian culture, the institution’s previous website was outdated and difficult to navigate. The museum had multiple collections featured online, but they were difficult to find and view. Forge Apollo helped the museum create a new website using a modern design with improved user experience and technical optimization. After completing the redesign, the website experienced the following.
User Experience
Increase in Website Technical Health
Position Increase in Average Ranking
As a non-profit organization, the Ukrainian Museum and Library needed a strategy that maximized results for their budget.
We utilized a website design that limited costs while maximizing website performance. Our website designer curated a selection of designs with multiple image galleries and easy navigation to showcase the museum’s online exhibitions. The client chose their favorite, and our team built out the site.
Our build involved writing new copy, migrating all of their photo assets from the old site, and more.
In the spirit of making culture accessible to all, we made technical optimizations that the previous site lacked. This included optimizations, like adding alt text to images, to help search engines and assistive technologies navigate the site.
The Ukrainian Museum and Library didn’t have a proper logo file for their website. The logo on their existing site was a PNG they had scanned from a piece of paper. We provided a basic refresh of their logo to create an appropriate logo file, as well as refreshing their colors and fonts to reflect their desired look and feel on the website.
The new website highlights important Ukrainian cultural artifacts while also promoting support for the museum in its mission.
The website clearly shares the cultural significance of the Ukrainian Museum and Library while seamlessly directing visitors to their collections from the home page and navigation. The gallery feature on each page allows visitors to view online exhibitions. Donation, membership, and visitor information are also easily accessible for those who wish to support the museum directly.
The site’s technical optimization increased 41%, making it more accessible to search engine crawlers and assistive technologies.
Within six months of launching the website, the average ranking increased 5.5 positions, from 20.4 to 14.9.
After we completed the website, our contact from the Ukrainian Museum Library left the following review:
The staff at Forge Apollo did a fantastic job in developing a website for a small museum. Forge understood our requirements and went out of the way to make our new website a reality. The fresh look and update from our old clunker of a website makes navigating our new site such a pleasure. Thanks Forge Apollo!
Does your website support your organization’s goals? Can users find what they need? Contact Forge Apollo today to get started on your next website upgrade.