The new site, in addition to embodying the new, award winning branding also had to inspire visitors to be passionate about the natural world. Just like the museum, accessibility had to be a given.
As usual, we thought outside the accessibility box by creating a website that means everyone can have the same web experience without producing a site that has plain graphics and simple boxes of text.
Check out how the page comes alive highlighting the wonders of the natural world by draping images from nature across the top right of the navigation bar. The images are active and interact with the navigation bar – they hang from it, perch on it, crawl across and grow over it. You’ll also see that they aren’t compromised by the adjustable font size feature required for accessibility. The alt tags go beyond accessibility and deliver every user a fascinating natural history-related fact, meaning everyone leaves the site knowing more than they did before they visited. From a library of 25 templates, the Museum now has a site with over 15,000 pages, a million records and has opened its treasures up to even more people.
It's great, too, when our work is recognised for what it is, so when we were awarded 'WEBBY Honoree' status recently for the site, we were delighted as this is given only to work achieving the very highest marks among entries to the WEBBY Awards.