Natural History Museum of the Petrified Forest
Project description
The Museum of Natural History of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos was founded in 1994 for the purpose of study, research, promotion, exhibition, conservation and protection of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos. From its foundation until today, the Museum, led by its director Mr. Nikolaos Zouros, has a continuous upward trend, highlighting Lesvos and the fossil forest around the world. The fossil forest is a unique monument in the world thanks to which Lesvos has been recognized as a World Geopark by UNESCO.
The reason they approached us was to design a new modern website, worthy of the prestige of the Museum and the Petrified Forest.
Of course, it is our special honor to participate in this project and there is also a sense of responsibility towards our homeplace.
Our approach
Creating a successful website starts with an effective process of designing and understanding needs.
Structure definition
It took several meetings until we came up with the appropriate structure of the website. To achieve this we categorized the visitors of the page and analyzed their needs.
The webpage through its mega-menu answers all the basic questions of a potential visitor of the museum:
What will I see? What am I going to do? Where is it? When and how will I go? How do I buy a ticket?
Functional and attractive Design
The visuals of the page had to be modern and attractive, able to attract the interest of the potential visitor. An important factor for an attractive design is the quality of the photographic material, especially in such a demanding setting. For this reason, our company undertook the professional photoshooting of the museum and the exhibition places.
Exhibitions & Collections
Through exhibitions and collections the potential visitor can get a taste of what he will see by visiting the museum and the fossil forest. We tried both through the design of the page and through the texts to create the sense of experience that the visitor will gain.
Online ticket
In the times we live in the need to use an online ticket is a necessity. The Museum, being fully harmonized with the National and European legislation for the restriction of the spread of the coronavirus, offers through its online store the possibility of issuing an online ticket.
The guest can easily and quickly choose the type of ticket (regular, reduced) as well as the desired date of visit. The purchase is made using a credit card from the safe environment of Piraeus Bank.
Tickets are validated at the entrance of the museum and parks using a QR-Code scanner. The scan can be done directly from the screen of the electronic device (mobile) of the guest without the need to print the ticket.
E-shop
In addition, one can buy books and souvenirs from the Museum's online store with shipments around the world.
Hosting
Drupal 9 offers advanced caching techniques. These had to be properly configured for the needs of the page and the corresponding interventions were made on our dedicated servers. The high speed we achieved resulted in the best navigation experience for the user but also the improvement of the SEO of the page since the page load time as well as the use of https are taken into account in the ranking of Google.
In addition with the CDN service the site offers fast response from all over the world.
