The Getty

www.getty.edu

My first visit to the Getty Villa was in the 5^th grade (think obnoxious children giggling at the nudes), back before the new Getty Center was built. I’ve been back many times since, happily in better company, but never having seen the Getty website, I wanted to find out how they’re reaching out to the community via the Web.

Intended audience: The website targets several specific audiences, with content appropriate to each one.

- Local Residents/Visitors: The Event Calendar and Exhibitions sections of the website provide easy-to-read listings of on-site lectures, concerts, etc.

- Educators: A prominent link on the opening page points to a fairly extensive selection of materials for teachers, who regularly bring groups to visit.

- Researchers/Scholars: Material is provided for those interested in studying Getty artifacts and those who want to learn about conservation and archival practices.

- Children: Though not an obvious link on the opening page, there is a well-designed selection of art-related games for children.

Usefulness of content: The site is useful because the designers identified their target audiences and have created content specific to each group’s needs. They have also incorporated multimedia files, such as audio guides describing exhibitions, images of art and manuscripts, and animated graphics for children.

One thing I expected to find on the site and didn’t was a virtual tour of the museum locations using digital video. Both are well-known for their architecture and gardens, and I think many visitors would be interested in “seeing” the museums in this way.

Consistency of design: The site is very consistent throughout, except for an intentional design change to create a kid-friendly game section. The general layout consists of a white background with a gray header bar and logo at the top of the page, and a gray footer with additional links at the bottom. A useful site search function is always located on the top header bar, while internal section links are usually along the left margin.

Ease of navigation: The site uses a tab structure to help users navigate. Within each main tab (Visit, Museum, Research Institute, etc.), there are sub-topics to choose from. These are highlighted with a white background when selected, so the user always knows which tab and sub-section he/she is viewing. The designers solved the problem of having to display information about both the main museum and the villa (different exhibitions, hours, parking, etc.) by dividing some pages vertically with different background colors.

The design and “feel” of the Getty website, especially the simple and clean white/gray color scheme, certainly reflect my impressions of the Getty Center. I found this to be an informative and well-designed site.