Promoting Life-long Learning
Witte Museums' primary Internet objective is to have an attractive, user-friendly website that is interactive and entices the web visitor to become a museum member. They would like to see an increase in program and event reservations, donations and museum memberships.
Challenge
Witte Museum currently has a web presence that is outdated in appearance, structure and in the presentation of content. An opportunity exists to re-engineer the site to better reflect their mission using the latest web technology.
Solution
NPower Texas redesigned the web site in a manner so that potential visitors, upon entering the site, could see upcoming and new exhibits to the museum. When you visit the site, there is a rotating banner on the homepage to highlight these key exhibits as well as features of the museum. Across the top of the homepage and bottom of all pages on the website, is a rotating block of 8-12 individual images that represent a call to action for visitors. They can plan their visit, purchase tickets and even make donations from anywhere on the website.
Across the tops of all pages, visitors are encouraged to network with the Witte Museum by joining them on Facebook, following them on Twitter and watching museum videos via YouTube.
NPower Texas implemented PayPal as a means to accept donations, purchase event tickets and to take memberships. In addition, NPower Texas implemented a content management system so that the organization could update the web site on a regular basis to keep the information current.
Impact
The Witte Museums mission of "promoting life-long learning" has been accomplished by making it easy for visitors to have a clear path of action when on the website. Through social networking, the site becomes more interactive and gets everyone involved. The content on the web site can now stay updated with the help of a content management system.
Before and After Screen Shots of the Witte Museum Web Site
Click on the image to see a larger version and description.
About the Nonprofit
The Witte Museum is San Antonio's premiere museum of South Texas history, culture, and natural science. Located in Brackenridge Park, on the banks of the San Antonio River , the Witte offers permanent exhibits that include dinosaur skeletons, cave drawings, wildlife dioramas, and even some live animals. Several historic homes have been reconstructed on the campus, which also features the very popular H-E-B Science Treehouse. Changing galleries include Texas artists, textiles and showcase exhibits, some locally produced and some traveling national exhibits.


