CONCEPT Concept Introduction Preliminary Questions Stakeholder Input Focus Group Questions Resource Inventory Contributing Factors Considering Realities Considerations for Small Websites Considerations for Medium Websites

Concept - Preliminary Questions

Before you develop a concept, theme, or visual design for your educational website, consider asking your staff, volunteers, or stakeholders the following questions:

Why:

1. Why create an educational website for your museum?
2. What is its purpose?
3. What are the specific benefits or disadvantages for your museum in hosting an educational website versus offering a traditional education or outreach program?

Who:

1. Who will contribute content to your site? (program staff, interpreters, researchers, curators, conservators, etc.)
2. Who will join your website development team?
3. Who will design and build your website?
4. Who will host and maintain your site? (internal staff or outside resources)
5. Who will monitor the site pages and keep information current once your site is live?

How:

1. How will you produce your website? What implications are there for your budget, technology requirements, and human resources?
2. How often will you update your site and revisit the content?
3. How will you promote your site?
4. What benchmarks will you set to measure success for your website?
5. What is the timeline for this project? Do you have a required date on which your website must be live?
6. How will you evaluate your site to see if it meets your requirements?

Stakeholder Goals:

1. Who are your stakeholders? (museum, board, community, not-for-profit partners, volunteers, sponsors, design consultants etc.)
2. What are their needs? Are all stakeholder needs the same?
3. What do your stakeholders hope to achieve in hosting a website?
4. How are you going to include your stakeholders in the planning stage and encourage input? (focus group, survey, volunteer or staff meeting, board retreat, etc.)

Users:

1. Who are your audiences?
2. What do you really know about them?
3. What will the user experience be like? What will they see, do, or interact with?
4. What will they learn? Accomplish? What do you want them to see, do, or learn on your website? How is this different from your audiences' response?

In addition to considering your purpose and goals in developing a website, you may wish to consider what a website may or may not do for your museum. Whether for promotional or educational reasons a website can:

• market and promote your museum or events
• provide a place where non-traditional museum goers may visit
• be an effective forum to share information about opening hours, location, events, or admission prices
• provide additional floor space to host online exhibits or events
• be a hands-off venue to share sensitive collections or archival materials
• be an extra classroom to host education or interpretive programming
• provide an opportunity to communicate with your public and stakeholder groups
• be an educational tool
• increase awareness of your museum
• be a venue to recognize donors and sponsors
• be a 'virtual' museum
• provide a multi-media presentation of your mission, values, culture, or history
• provide a direct link to your museum staff
• provide visitors with the opportunity to purchase items such as educational programs, annual memberships, or online shopping items

A website cannot:

• eliminate the visitor's desire to visit the real museum and see the real object
• operate without maintenance, updating and evaluation
• replace staff or reduce their workload
• solve marketing issues for your museum
• be the solution to all problems