Web and mobile

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has finally stepped into the app arena with this stylish offering.

As the largest art gallery in the US and one of the best-known across the globe, it’s perhaps surprising that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hasn’t released an app sooner. The Met, a free app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch only, may be a little late to the party but its simple design and attention to detail shows that it’s not always the early bird that catches the worm.

The app aims to highlight the museum’s collection for potential visitors as well as those unable to physically go. It features current exhibitions and events, highlights from the collection, staff picks and a syndication of the Met’s Twitter feed. Users can swipe through the options, or use a navigation tool to jump to a section, and there’s also the option to share all the information they find on social media.

This content is hardly revolutionary. But what makes The Met app stand out is the fact it has clearly been designed with users’ needs in mind.

The starting point is: “What would someone who has downloaded this app want or need to find out?” The essential visitor information is available from all of the sections – opening hours, ticket and accessibility information, and the chance to donate or become a member.

Good-quality images and accessible text make this app appealing to non-visitors, too. I loved the opener to a fragment of an Egyptian statue: “Whose sensuous lips are these?”

There are minor annoyances, including having to click for more information and cryptic section titles (“The Latest…”, for example, which is in fact the Twitter feed). But The Met delivers pretty much everything you might want from a museum app – and it is nice to look at as well.

The Art Trail Explorer links art to locality.

Southend Museums Service’s new app, the Art Trail Explorer, aims to give people a reason to explore its collection of artworks and the local area.

Via a free app for Apple and Android users, the museum service in Essex has created a number of themed trails, such as a drive that takes in churches from Great Wakering to Leigh-on-Sea and a one-mile cliff walk.

Paintings and drawings are used to illustrate local landmarks and attractions, with a sliding toggle offering comparable scenes from the present day. Users can also explore the artworks and create a virtual scrapbook of their favourites.

It may not be the glitziest one on the marketplace, but Southend Museums Service’s activity-based app, which was funded with an arts council grant, does a good job of promoting its collection and the local area.

The website of the National Archives has a difficult role to play. On one hand it has to promote its collections to a broad range of members of the public, and on the other it has a remit to support the wider sector.

Its new website prioritises the former, with a bold call to action: the banner, “Explore our records” is probably the first thing visitors will see. Further options underneath slightly confuse this clear message – “Search 1,000 years of history” and “Find our digitised collections” take users to completely different landing pages, without a clear explanation of what the difference is.

The site also features Discovery, the catalogue that was upgraded on 1 September to enable users to search and tag 32 million record descriptions. It now includes an extra 10 million records from other collections.

Elsewhere on the site, information about the archives sector manages to include lots of information without looking cluttered, and highlighting current initiatives is a nice touch.

The website doesn’t have a top navigation bar, with news and visitor information featuring on the homepage. However, a red “Menu” button brings up a list of the options, and a bottom navigation bar directs people to contacts and social media links. Because the homepage requires a fair bit of scrolling, the designers have included a helpful “back to top” button.

The redesign is only partial, and it’s unfortunate that people using the site will probably at some point end up on a page from the old design that is in stark contrast to the fresh look of the homepage.