DRESDEN.- As of today, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD) have launched a fully revised and redesigned website. Visitors will find all the key information on the museums association in a new design with clever user navigation at www.skd.museum.

As well as its new look, the website is also innovative in terms of structure: the portal brings together all the information that visitors need about the umbrella organisation Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and displays selected highlights in the different museums and collections. To do justice to the unique nature and individual importance of the fifteen museums and four institutions which the SKD represents, each is represented in turn by its own portal area, which can be navigated directly as a subdomain and comes up quickly in search engines. These museum pages feature specific content on permanent and special exhibitions, educational schemes, events programmes and cross-collection research projects seen from an individual point of view.

One particular challenge was to present the wide range covered by the association, and by the museums and institutions themselves, in a well thought-out manner, giving the information a clear structure. This was achieved using an overall menu-based navigation system adapted to each museum. The main navigation points Visit, Exhibitions, Program, Education, Research and About us provide general information on the SKD portal. On the museums’ pages, this information is filtered for each venue, though the main navigation bar looks the same to users. The adapted logo design means that the SKD is always mentioned alongside the name of each museum. This intuitive user navigation system means that international visitors and professionals alike can find their subject of interest quickly and directly among the varied information.

The website design stands out for an image-oriented approach which perfectly showcases the unique objects in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden inventory, focusing on people’s experience of the collections and the pleasure they take in exploring the items and exhibitions. Familiar features such as panoramic tours, exhibition videos, audio clips and visitor information in a total of ten different languages are, of course, still to be found on the site, not to mention the SKD blog, the social media channels and the newsletter. The Online Collection database and the research channel are directly integrated in the form of individual modules and currently provide further information on more than 100,000 objects in the collection, as well as on individual scientists and research projects. The Press area acts as a newsroom, providing media representatives and multipliers with vividly presented information and materials to match.

The new portal has been designed to be responsive, taking into account the fact that portals are increasingly accessed from various mobile devices. The layout thus automatically adapts to the displays on smartphones, tablets and desktop computers, so that the site looks its best on every device. To make it as accessible as possible for all visitors, the portal is largely barrier-free.

The new design followed careful analysis of the different needs of numerous user groups and extensive background planning carried out by the Berlin company TBO INTERACTIVE. The design work, technical planning and implementation were completed by the Dresden company XIMA Media in collaboration with the Polyform agency. The relaunch was made possible by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Monika Grütters, as part of the "InvestOst" funding programme, alongside funding from the Free State of Saxony.

Marion Ackermann, Director-General of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, commented: “The new website marks a milestone in digital communication for Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. In a globalised, digitalised world, the response we receive from our various target groups depends to a great extent on our addressing them through digital communication that is in line with the times. That is why we have significantly strengthened our presence on social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Now, we are presenting ourselves online with a modern, state-of-the-art portal. During its development, it was particularly important to us to change our previous approach and give the individual museums and institutions their own space. After all, our collections are as diverse and as numerous as our target groups. The museums and their specific programmes express just what it is that characterises Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden as an association. As innovation is increasing at an ever-faster rate, from now on we will keep on developing our new website, following the principle of a continuous relaunch.”

Refreshing the Online Collection
As part of the website relaunch, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden’s Online Collection was fundamentally revamped in terms of its design and technological infrastructure, and adapted to match the new site. Having worked with the SKD to develop and create the database of objects underlying the “Daphne” project encompassing provenance research, data-gathering and inventory-making, it was again the Robotron company which found an innovative technological solution to accompany the Online Collection’s new web design. The more than 100,000 items currently in the Online Collection can be found by means of an advanced search taking in various criteria. Like the portal itself, the Online Collection is responsive, i.e. designed to be viewed on different devices. When it comes to research into works of art, this makes the Online Collection an important platform both for scientists and for the general public.