We worked closely with the University of Toronto Libraries to develop a new Omeka-based platform to support their library exhibits with a focus on usability and interactivity.
Exhibits UofT collects and showcases researcher exhibits from across the University of Toronto and currently includes over 50 exhibits created by University of Toronto staff.
Challenge
The current theme was not meeting the changing needs of current and future curators. Artefacto was approached to develop a new, more user-friendly site for creating and sharing UoT exhibits, a site that facilitates faculty, librarian, and researcher exhibit-building.
Our solution
This project involved developing a flexible theme that library staff and other curators could use to create their own engaging and interactive exhibits.
The new theme needed to allow curators to easily develop different types of exhibits showcasing and sharing the stories of their collections.
We worked in collaboration with the UoT libraries team to improve the discoverability of their exhibits collections through search and by showcasing featured themes on the landing page.
We developed a fully responsive and accessible theme for the new Exhibits UoT as well a new, flexible theme to use for future faculty and catalogue websites.
We also developed a new Omeka plugin that offers curators new, custom layouts that can be incorporated into their digital exhibits using the Exhibit Builder plugin.
The theme was iteratively tested with users to gather feedback, which was then incorporated back into the development cycle.