My Role

UX/UI Designer

Deliverables

Persona, Sitemap, Customer Journey Map, UI Library, Mockups, Prototypes

THE CHALLENGE

Located in Middleton, WI, the National Mustard Museum has over 6,000 different types of mustard and hundreds of pieces of mustard memorabilia. The museum has been featured on countless features on national television, radio shows, and in national newspapers. It is part museum and part novelty shop, with a huge selection of mustards for sale from around the world.

The Mustard Museum’s website is outdated, and since it contains a huge amount of mustard and museum-related information, it can be difficult to navigate. The website is also not responsive, so mobile users are unable to do more than check open hours.

THE IMPACT

This is a speculative project, so it has not been implemented. However, the Mustard Museum does not charge admission, and so relies on donations and mustard sales for its income. According to one study, 81% of people think less of a brand if its website is not updated. Also, 39% would think twice about using a product or service if the website isn’t fresh and current. Around 43% ranked ease of use as a top priority in making their online experience better. So, the museum could improve its attendance and conversion rate by almost half if its website is modern, engaging, and easy to use.

RESEARCH

I had some questions I needed to answer before I could create a website that really answered the museum’s needs. How do people choose a museum to go to? What information do they want from the museum before they visit? How do users interact with specialty stores and their websites?

Competitor Analysis

I evaluated 4 competitors, including:

• The House on the Rock, another quirky local museum, which I evaluated because they are a direct competitor in clientele

• The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, another combination novelty museum and shop, evaluated because it has a similar business model to the Mustard Museum

• Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, a novelty soda store with personality, selected for its eye-catching personality and quirky selections

• The Candy Club, an online candy store with good organization of products and services, with strong UX

User Interviews

I interviewed 3 people about their museum-going and specialty-shopping habits. The questions I asked were about some experiences they had recently had at a museum, how they had chosen it, and how much information they like to know about museums before going. I also asked about locally-owned specialty shops and how they interact with those stores and their respective websites.

Below you can find my notes from those conversations, taken in Miro.

From my interviews, I noticed several key trends.

• People are likely to decide to go into a museum while out and about.

  • This means that a responsive website is absolutely essential, as people may look at a museum’s website on their phone before deciding to go in.

  • The website should quickly highlight the best reasons to go inside.

• People are typically looking for the same basic information about a museum before they go: hours, price, and location.

  • This information needs to be prominently placed on the website and easy to find.

  • Other information can be findable for people who like to dig deeper, but doesn’t need to be as prominent.

• The thing most people like about shopping at specialty shops is the variety of merchandise that isn’t available at a typical store.

  • So, the store should feature the specialness of being able to find difficult-to-find mustards and the sentiment, “If you can’t find it here, you won’t find it anywhere.”