Opened on 15 May 2002, The Mendel Museum of Genetics is housed in the Abbey of St. Thomas where Gregor Mendel lived as an Augustinian friar and later as abbot. The opening exhibition, Mendel: Genius of Genetics, fills rooms adjacent to the garden where Mendel did his experiments, growing peas for many years and writing a paper on plant hybrids that is now considered the foundation for the science of Genetics. Bringing together science and art, the exhibition combines historical items with interactive computer technology and new works of art by contemporary European artists inspired by genetics.
The project
Home page with Mendel's portrait
The new museum, located in Brno, Czech Republic, wanted to reach not only a local but also a global audience. The exhibition designers also wanted to include interactive animation to help the audience understand the complexity and significance of Mendel's experiments.
Our approach
K+A teamed with Attoma Design to do the planning, design, and production of the exhibition web site and interactive kiosk.
The solution
K+A began the process of design for the exhibition web site by producing an information architecture report. Through consultation with the exhibition team, we defined the purpose of the site and matched the available content to these goals.
Screenshot of the Mendel Museum web site
The structure and navigation requirements of the web site were captured in a planning diagram containing all the requirements for the site, including distribution of information, global navigation requirements for the entire site, local navigation requirements for each section, the location and destination of links to other web sites, as well as information about authoring and update responsibility for several sections. This diagram was used to share common understanding about site between the various members of the team. This structure was reflected in the final page designs, produced by Attoma Design.
K+A managed the HTML production of the site, in collaboration with the exhibition design team. All material was produced in English, German and Czech languages.
Sequence of screens from the Mendel Experiments animation
In addition to the web site, K+A and Attoma produced Mendel's Experiments, an interactive kiosk explaining the experiments behind Mendel's classic paper on plant hybrids. The purpose of the kiosk is to explain Mendel's genius through a stylized presentation of his experiments. The FLASH application has been produced as a CD ROM and is available on the museum website.
The result
The Mendel Museum of Genetics is well represented on the web in three languages. The temporary exhibition, which traveled to the Field Museum in Chicago in 2007, is still available for the general audience on the web. The museum continues to update and expand the website, reflecting current conference and exhibition activities.