Website: Doge's Palace

Website Survey of Doge's Palace in Venice, Italy

Website survey: Doge's Palace

Finding Southern European museums on the Internet can be a bothersome affair.  Often you end up at official or private tourist information sites offering everything from hotels and restaurants to sports activities and museums (besides loads of advertisements).  Basically they seem to be dead-end labyrinths, as they won’t let you out of their grip.  To be honest many of them have heaps of great information on museums including basic things such as admission prices and opening hours, but they have ‘forgotten’ to provide the key to the labyrinth: a direct link to the museum.   

This was also the case, when trying to find the website for the Doge’s Palace in Venice.   Finally one of the nicer looking websites turned out to be the website for a network of 11 museums, including Doge’s Palace, under the management of the Venice Museum Authority!  This is certainly a good idea, but this should be stated at the outset and supported by the layout.  

User-friendliness
Acceptable, but there is room for improvement.  The museum shares website-address and website with ten other sites such as the Venice Clock Tower, Lace Museum and Glass Museum.  The geographical link between the eleven sites is obvious, but this set-up should be spelled out for visitors in words and graphics to avoid confusion.   

Navigation
Poor.  It is quite difficult to find basic information such as address or up-coming events.  Links at the bottom of long pages using light blue lettering can easily be overlooked and involve a lot of scrolling.  On-going exhibitions and up-coming events require that you go out to the shared website platform, where you get all the museums exhibitions in chronological order.  Generally one only finds information by chance, which obviously is not satisfactory.   There is no search engine, nor a print icon.  

Updating
One gets the impression that the entire website needs to be checked, so that information may be coordinated.  Just one example: there is a link to “Restoration” where the initial message states that, “In summer 2004 work will begin on the inner fourteenth- and fifteenth-century facades and the Renaissance facade of the small church of San Nicolò”.  This should take 3 years.  Is the restoration complete for the up-coming tourist season? 

Content
After a turbulent journey to the Doge’s Palace website, the first thing that meets the visitor is a detailed description of the “Building and History” of the palace.  A short basic explanation of the Palace’s history and usage followed by links to more detailed information would work better.

There are user-friendly instructions on how to find the museum by car, train, water car, plane, and on foot.  Many tourists will already be in the city centre and will chose: “If you are already in Venice and want to walk, use this service to find your way from museum to museum: Webgis-Insula.”  Unfortunately the link only brings you to an Italian website where you have to have some knowledge of the language to produce a useable map.   

Using the Link Didactics (educational services) one ends up on an empty page with an Italian message: “Le attività riprenderanno dal mese di settembre.”  Does this mean that this educational feature will be available in September 2007, or should it have been available in September 2006?  Bits of Italian is to be found different places on the English version. 

Aesthetics
The initial page referring to all eleven Venetian landmarks is well-designes complete with 5 pictures and menu-items: Information, Museums, Facilities for Scholars and Activities & Suggestions.  Unfortunately this layout isn’t used at the sights themselves.  Here the background is a pale pink, the lettering small and there is loads of blank wasted space on the right hand side.  

Conclusion
All in all a very basic website for a magnificent sight such as Doge’s Palace in Venice.

Is there nothing positive to say about the website?  Of course there is.  Even though the website isn’t impressive, one quickly gets the impression that this is a sight that must be seen.  Anyone interested in Italian history will enjoy the historical piece as well as the text-links and many thumbnail pictures (a couple of the links don’t work) that bring you to new pages with larger pictures and descriptions.

I also do like the idea of museums joining forces and marketing themselves together, which can give synergy and cost-savings.  Many visitors will also appreciate price reductions when visiting several linked museums and discover smaller more specialized museums that otherwise may be overlooked.  So the concept is fine, it just needs a bit of fine-tuning. 

Related Information
What's in a good 'culture' website?  Criterion
Website comparison, Doge's Palace and Groeninge Museum

Related Information
Doge's Palace, Link