Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum
The fascination of history: The German Historical Museum
The Deutsches Historisches Museum is Germany's national history museum - a place where history is communicated and discussed in a lively way. As an information medium and storehouse of knowledge, the website is the most important means of communication. With the relaunch, we have created a strong and creative appearance and linked the various offers in a user-friendly way.
Co-creation and workshops
The collection of the German Historical Museum comprises around 1,000,000 objects. In the permanent exhibition "German History from the Middle Ages to the Fall of the Wall" in the Zeughaus, it displays 7,000 of these objects. In a co-creative process with the DHM, we developed a concept for the new information architecture and navigation structure in workshops using personas, card sorting and paper prototyping.
The website is at the centre of the DHM's online offerings: It is the core element from which all other offers and sub-brands can be accessed.
A unifying design for different use cases
The Zeughauskino was integrated into the DHM website as an independent section. Users can easily switch between the two content hubs - a customised layout ensures that the Zeughauskino forms its own brand within the overall website.
Our graphic designers have created a basic layout for various use cases that sets individual accents for different offers.
Digital collection
Currently, 740,000 of the 1,000,000 objects in the collections have been digitised. On the website, individual areas of the collection are now clearly represented in thematic groups via digital copies. To this end, we have linked the object database to the website.
"In order to meet the information and knowledge needs of our visitors, digital standards ensure user-friendliness on our new website."
The project started in the middle of the first lockdown. We then quickly switched to virtual meetings - which worked perfectly.
Archives made accessible
The DHM's digital cosmos has grown steadily over the past decades and has become structurally diluted. Exhibition pages from the 1990s are still online. With our technical concept, we have ensured that these "old" HTML websites are still accessible and fit seamlessly into the overall offering.
A deep look into the archive: The migration included content, dates and films from the past 20 years.
We imported the DHM blog posts from Wordpress to create additional related content on the website.
White on black: Dark Mode
Dark mode is the trend: more and more apps are offering a dark mode in their settings. This drastically reduces the amount of white in order to save energy and protect the eyes. To achieve this, the colours are reversed in dark mode. Everything that is light becomes dark. Everything that is dark becomes light.
The Today+ feature brings together all the important information about a visit to the museum at a glance.
Solr search
For optimal search performance on the site, we have set up a Solr search with various sub-searches, which also includes the Zeughauskino's programme schedule and programme archive, for example.
