Site Development Research

So today we started looking at what we might want to include in our new design for Rutland County Museum's website.
A good place to start was by looking at what the current site has to offer, and so my job was to do a quick audit. Apologies if this is all a little dry!

The navigation bar links the visitor to several important key areas (both physical and theoretical) of the museum. So, a web visitor can find out about:
- the history of the museum and of the castle
- a small and incomplete summary of their collections
- the significance of each area of the museum: the riding school, the courtyard, the garden and the poultry yard, as well as location maps for both the museum and castle
- a brief introduction to the county of Rutland as well as information about what is available at the visitor centre
- education resources: not available on the site itself, but instead available at http://www.learnwithmuseums.org.uk/museums/rutland_county/index.html
- visitor facilities: information about access, toilets, photography, parking, object identification, shop.
- events and exhibitions: a detailed account of their current temporary exhibition as well as upcoming exhibitions and a separate section for National Archaeology Week events
- information on room bookings and wedding hire - a big generator of income for the museum

On my travels around the Web, I also came across this website: http://www.rol.co.uk/ which is home to the company that created the existing Rutnet. Worth investigating further perhaps to understand what CMS they use, who they are, and make sure we don't step on any toes.

So, after looking at what they have currently, the next step is to look at what possibilities there would be for a new website which is where the others come in with their research...