V&A
A user-centred design transformation for the world's leading museum of art and design
4x
ROI in 24 months
30%
Increase in page views
750k
Additional visits in Y1
- Research & Strategy
- Products & services
- Design transformation
- Research & Strategy
- Products & services
- Design transformation
We partnered with the Victoria & Albert Museum to deliver a radical programme of design-led digital transformation that brought the V&A to life as a new digital experience, brand, and platform. We transformed the way digital happens inside the V&A, and worked together with the museum’s teams to drive significant revenue growth, increase visitors, extend global reach and improve access to its collections.
Working backwards from the customer experience, we created a groundbreaking new digital platform that delivered significant commercial success, and empowered the museum’s teams with new tools and a product mindset.
Understanding the V&A’s unique context
The V&A is a treasure-house of art and design. Its collection of 4.5 million objects spans 5,000 years of human creativity, showcasing extraordinary artefacts from around the globe and celebrating human ingenuity across cultures.
A digital strategy to drive access, grow visitor numbers and revenue
We worked with The V&A to shape a new digital strategy with three goals: widen access to the museum's resources, enable digital self-sufficiency, and create an online display architecture to mirror The V&A’s physical exhibitions.
Engaging internal stakeholders
The V&A is a unique and multi-faceted cultural institution, and we needed to engage its talented and diverse stakeholders to be successful.Collaborative design and open playback sessions helped us develop ideas together and make planning and decision-making as transparent as possible.
User-centred approach to design
We gained a deep understanding of V&A’s audiences from interviews, analytics, and market research. This helped us identify four key customer segments, mapped journeys and develop personas to address unique needs and motivations.
Museum ‘object’ as the atomic unit of content
We developed a radical object-centric CMS to mirror the museum’s physical curation. Unlike a traditional article-based CMS solution, it allows The Museum to create a dynamic digital discovery layer around the collection, using the ‘object’ to link exhibitions, events, and multimedia, and fostering exploration. The new CMS also enabled an 8x faster editorial publishing process that shifted the content team's focus from production to creative strategy.
Agile development collaboration
We helped the organisation embed a product mindset and new ways of working that permanently improved the way they create and manage software. This included recruiting, upskilling and mentoring the museum’s digital team to become self-sufficient. We empowered them within the organisation, and they continue to build on the foundations we laid.
Deep and lasting impact
The V&A’s digital transformation drove significant success, adding 750,000 museum visits in the first year and boosting page views by 30%. Enhanced engagement metrics, faster content publishing, and a 4x ROI within 24 months established the V&A as a digital leader in the cultural sector.
Our journey with Made by Many has been utterly inspiring: they get product and business innovation and we've built a new website that’s been embraced by our audiences
Jane Doe
Head of sales
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