Check it out here http://www.royalacademy.org.uk.
The new site... is the first stage of an ambitious project to open up the Academy and provide new ways of engaging with art and artists online.
Mini iPad compatibility
It looks wonderful - big enough and small enough! I'm getting four columns across in landscape format and all are easy to read in terms of headings, sub-heads and text"Need to know" information
The top menu takes care of the "need to know" visits to the website.
There are some issues here eg the artists page on my iPad shows images of the artists - but they now have no names. It could be this is a bid to get people to explore, but I can see it would be very frustrating if you just wanted to find a specific artist. Finding a specific artist now depends on knowing their name and spelling correctly.
On the other hand I put David into the search field and all the RAs called david came up immediately - complete with proper name and link to their page.
The only problem I've spotted so far is they need to get their act together on creating Facebook compatible images ie the ones which get served up to Facebook via the feed for the site. It's really not making the most of the way Facebook likes images.
What it looks like
The image on the right gives you a bit of a taster of what it looks like. This is as much as I could fit in by reducing the website in size.
I think they need to be careful not to get too image happy and remember words are still quite critical for some people!
Feedback
The RA are interested in your thoughts about their new directions in terms of digital strategy and want your feedback
You can read more of the thinking behind our new site and our future digital plans on our new blog, and if you’d like any more information about this please let us know.
I think it's trying to be less serious. But of course some people want serious.
ReplyDeleteI found I had to click through quite a lot before I found where to track entries for the Summer Exhibition.
I expect navigation is one of those things they'll get better at once they see what people are trying to find
ReplyDeleteOf course to find it you have to know it's there and where to look for it........
I am so pleased to find this information. My sister is a member and has not even told me about it. Grateful...here in the USA.
ReplyDelete