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Why creating a menu for 'past', 'current' and 'future' exhibitions is a waste

Many galleries still seem to struggle about how to present their exhibitions on their site. With an average of 6 to 10 exhibitions a year, after a few years the exhibitions represent an impressive load of information and a real challenge. Not only to catalogue, but above all to arrange so that visitors will want to look them up.

 

Most galleries still opt for the outdated 'silo' approach

To cut short, they create a special menu item 'exhibitions'. Clicking 'exhibitions' opens a supplementary step offering 'past', 'current' and 'future' exhibitions.

This seems a pretty OK solution: logical, clean and neatly separated from the rest of the content.
It's all in there.
All your visitors have to do is to go dig.

 

Imagine a similar situation in real life

Once passed the gallery's front door a road sign in the entrance would suggest taking a direction: past exhibitions to the left, current show straight on and future exhibitions to the right.

Complete nonsense of course, causing a lot of unnecessary confusion. People entering a gallery have but one thing in mind: they come in to see “what's on now”.

 

Likewise on the web

People looking up a gallery's site have but one expectation: they want to discover immediately the exhibition that is currently on. Building-in one or two intermediate steps by forcing them to choose between past, current and future exhibitions is a waste.

Why confuse them? Why force them to make a choice? Why not take them directly to what they want to see?

 

On the web past has gone, future can wait

There's only 'now'. And you better take this seriously.'Now' is less than seconds long. This is the average time people look up a menu, scan a submenu and scroll down to find the information they are looking for.

And yes sometimes menus and submenus are necessary.
It isn't easy to arrange a massive load of information in a smooth, directly accessible way.

However, remember that every supplementary choices in the menu bar or drop down menu adds to their annoyance.

 

The most effective solutions are often purely intuitive

Do exactly as in the real world

Once they’ve pushed 'your front door' visitors want to see the exhibition they came for. So the most logical choice is to present the current exhibition on your home page, the very first page your visitors see when they look up your gallery's site.

All other exhibition information on this level is of secondary importance for them at the moment. So leave out any possibility to look up other exhibitions because it weakens the impact of the home page. The one and only focus must go to the current exhibition of your artist.

 

Explore unique opportunities

If the artist of your current exhibition already had one or more showing at your gallery, you should provide the opportunity to look up all these previous shows directly from the home page via a text link included in your presentation of the artist.

By presenting the artist’s running and the previous shows within one click, you offer your visitors an extraordinary plus. Rather than having them dig in the entire list of past exhibitions, you offer your visitors the full scope of the artist’s evolution at a glance.

 

But how will you present your past exhibitions?

Past exhibitions are an integral part of the history of your gallery. They make your gallery’s reputation and are intimately linked with its branding.

They are best catalogued in the section where you present your gallery's program. Combined with your gallery's statement, the content of this section should offer prospective visitors the full scope of what your gallery stands for, the past exhibitions acting as the perfect illustration of your gallery's program.

 

And what about upcoming exhibitions?

Announcing upcoming exhibitions is critical to the branding of your gallery. If you publish the complete program of your gallery for the coming season well in advance, you emphasize the well-thought strategy of your gallery's program.

By its characteristics, the most logical spot for announcing future exhibitions is under 'news'. And yes, you can add to your visitors' experience by offering a link to previous shows of the artists here too.

 

Updating your gallery site's content this way offers nothing but advantages

I admit, it isn't a simple task. It nearly represents a partial make-over. And it certainly is more demanding than simply updating a single page with each new exhibition.

But the advantages are legion, especially with regard to your presence on the web. The search engines spiders will index your gallery's pages more frequently because you:

 

But most of all, your visitors will appreciate

Abandoning the artificial 'silo' approach where you present your gallery's exhibitions in an isolated section creates a much richer visitors' experience.

With the focus firmly set on the “what’s on now” and with previous exhibitions also directly accessible, you will be offering them an excellent opportunity to view each artist’s evolution in detail.

Moreover, relocating intuitively past and future exhibitions and integrating them in existing sections, will add to accessibility.

After all, offering your visitors as much information, as quickly as possible, in the most direct and intuitive way, by eliminating all unnecessary steps is what your gallery’s site is all about. Because no one really loves digging.

 

 

 

 

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