Inspiring curiosity with digital engagement
A firm fixture in the capital since 1852, the V&A is renowned for its diverse art, design and performance collections that span 5,000 years of human creativity. Originally conceived to inspire British designers and manufacturers, today it aims to champion creativity on a much wider scale while also inspiring younger generations.
This is a new global, culturally relevant, digital interpretation of the V&A for young people, which we hope will inspire them with the world of art, design and creativity
Kati Price – Head of Experience and Digital Media at the V&A
In line with its objectives, the prestigious organisation has recently opened the doors to its renovated Bethnal Green exhibition space which is dedicated entirely to children. Formerly known as the Museum of Childhood, the rebranded Young V&A brings together almost 2,000 toys in surroundings that aim to spark imagination, play and design. In tandem with the launch, the V&A has also unveiled mused – its new online destination powered by a custom WordPress CMS developed by Big Bite.
Intuitive templates for interactive content
Developed by our team in close collaboration with the V&A’s visual design team, the museum’s new CMS fully leverages the flexibility and extensibility of the WordPress platform and its in-built block editor. Featuring easy-to-use templates, the publishing tool enables the V&A’s in-house teams to quickly create pages and posts in a wide range of interactive, audience-engaging formats which include:
Articles and listicles
that take a humorous look at objects in the V&A collection, with content including Top 10 objects for surviving a zombie apocalypse and Top 10 cutest objects.
Personality quizzes
that allow users to explore their identity in playful and creative ways, with the quiz engine matching them to objects and themes such as Which fashion ‘core’ is your style?
Trivia quizzes
that allow users to test their knowledge on subjects from V&A objects and themes to movies and contemporary fashion, for example V&A object or AI image?
Inclusive and accessible
To support inclusivity, the developed templates have also undergone robust testing to ensure that every page produced via the V&A’s custom CMS adheres to comprehensive accessibility standards, ensuring compatibility with screen readers and similar digital tools.
Users can zoom in site pages by 400% without text spilling off the screen, navigate the website using just a keyboard or speech recognition software, listen to site content via a screen reader, and change colours, contrast levels and fonts via browsers or plugins. This means that as many people as possible – including young people with visual impairments – are able to interact and engage with the majority of the site’s content.
The Big Bite team diligently and brilliantly built mused, enabling us to easily create content in any format we need and ultimately provide a stimulating, safe and welcoming environment for younger audiences to spend time online.
Kati Price, Head of Experience and Digital Media, V&A
Robust safeguarding
With online safety also a key requirement for the project, we’ve ensured that the site complies with a number of robust standards, including:
- The ICO Children’s Code – a statutory code of practice that covers how online services aimed at children, or likely to be used by children, should comply with UK data protection legislation.
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – an EU regulation that governs how personal data of individuals can be collected and processed.
- The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) – a United States federal law that applies to the collection of personal data of children under the age of 13, and sets out the responsibilities of operators to protect children’s privacy.
As a result, the site protects users, provides peace of mind for parents and carers, and enables the V&A to share content in a safe and secure digital environment while inspiring the next generation of creative minds.
* Between July and November 2023
** Results based on an audience sentiment survey carried out in September 2023, where over 90% of surveyed users rated the mused website as okay, great, or completely brilliant.
