We are planning our next trip to Chicago and hoping to spend some time with family. I decided to find out what kinds of educational activities there are for children in Chicago. In the search engine Google, I typed: “Children’s museum, Chicago area.”
- Chicago Children’s Museum from www.booking.com
- Art Institute of Chicago from www.artic.edu/visit-chicago
- The 7 best children's museums in Chicago from www.chicagoparent.com
- Family museums in Chicago and the suburbs from www.chicagoparent.com
- Kohl Children's Museum from www.kohlchildrensmuseum.org
- Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org/
- ChicagoKids.com from www.chicagokids.com/places/category/10/museums
- List of museums in Illinois from www.wikipedia.org
- DuPage Children's Museum from www.dupagechildrens.org
- Fly Chicago | O'Hare | Traveling with Children from www.flychicago.com/OHare/EN//Traveling-with-Children.aspx
My expectations were not fully met by the search results. The top result was completely useless, since the website booking.com only advertises hotels near the museum, and has no information about museums themselves at all. The second hit was the website for the Art Institute, which is an educational place. However, it is far from the typical notion of a ‘children’s museum’ that I was looking for. Finally, the third and the fourth results were the most useful. These were to the website Chicago Parent, which provides a brief overview of all children’s museums in the area, their advantages, things to see there, links to their actual web sites, and contact information. The fifth, sixth and ninth links were references to specific museums. The website chicagokids.com, which came up seven, and a Wikipedia page, which came up eighth, had a complete list of all museums, but to me it was not the most helpful since it is hard to pick up the children’s ones from the list, especially for a first-time visitor who has never been to any of the places before. Lastly, the tenth link, flychicago.com, talks about play areas in O’Hare Airport that had nothing to do with my search query. To conclude, out of the top ten results, only one was very useful (Chicago Parent), which provided me with brief, but concrete information on what I actually searched for) and three links led to specific museums that corresponded to my area of interest.
Below is an overview on the four websites that sounded most interesting to visit.
1
http://www.wonder-works.org/
WonderWorks is a children’s museum that provides creative and inquisitive ways of learning for children aged 0 to 8. The website is nice and not too crowded. The first thing that caught my eye were the testimonials on the top – quotes from visitors praising the museum. The website is simple and easy to use. It has a nice description of the facility, however, not too much that serves as a hook to make people come and see for themselves. The stories on each page have hyperlinks to the other sections of the page, which makes it easy to use. Every page is illustrated with photos of visitors and kids, but I wish there was more graphical information – e.g. a map of the museum or more pictures of what is available there in person. The website does not provide information on entrance fees, or a map with directions on how to get there. As a user, I found the layout of the page to be a little inconvenient. The font is small, and as soon as I enlarged the size, the right-side menu bars on each page disappeared and thus a lot of content goes missing.
The contact information is featured on a separate page and also at the bottom, which at first even seemed like advertising and I subconsciously ignored it. To me, the bottom bar was strange, since it has three hyperlinks – contact information, calendar of events, and a link back to homepage. Why did the developers choose to highlight those particular sections – it is unclear.
The website does provide a service for ordering a party by filling out a form. However, the form has fields to choose a party package, but there is no description of each package service or any prices, which would force a person to call and figure out everything by phone.
The only advertising on the page is on the party page – for a pizza restaurant that partners with the museum.
Even though the children’s museum website should be targeting parents and children, catering to them and enticing them to come to the museum, the website is not adequately meeting their needs. It is mostly an informational site where parents can find out just basic information. To conclude, I must say that the museum WonderWorks’ website does not do much to advertise and promote itself. If not for Chicagoparents.com, it is not easily searched and does not come up among the top ten while searching for museums, entertainment or fun for kids in Chicago.
2
http://www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org/
Chicago Children’s Museum
The website is very user friendly, has clear menus on the top and on the side, and provides all relevant information expected in each section of the menus.
The website is a useful service provider, where you can order tickets online, reserve seats at parties, events, and order field trips for an entire class, as well as order assistance for disabled kids.
3
http://www.kohlchildrensmuseum.org/
Kohl Children’s Museum
This third website of the Kohl Children’s Museum has an easy-to-understand structure; menus are clear and easy to navigate. It has a nice, detailed informational page targeting teachers and parents, positioning the museum as an entertainment and educational center for children. Stories and descriptions describing the products and activities available there are illustrated by flashing photos. The website looks like an informational brochure. No interactive activities are available, which is probably pretty boring for kids (main target audience of the museum).
There are online services provided – ordering tickets, becoming a member, ordering a party, etc. The services work well, no additional assistance is needed. All details and fees are also stated clearly online.
There are no advertisements on the website; only the page with partners has the logos of the partner businesses.
In general, the website is very comprehensive and fully answered all of my questions. As a visitor, I received information on how to get there and contact info. I could order admission tickets and knew what to expect from the exhibits. For children, however, the website would be less interesting, the creators must have not considered them one of the target audiences of the website.
4
http://dupagechildrens.org/
The DuPage Children’s Museum has a really nice, well-organized website - not too flashy, but really informative and resourceful. For marketing, they use various techniques – curiosity, story, demonstration and testimonials. It is filled with many illustrations – maps, photos and videos. Testimonials of visitors and famous people are flashing and catch a lot of attention. Videos are made by museum staff, media partners and sponsors and feature advertisements at the end of each video. On the ‘Exhibits’ pages, we start to see advertising by the sponsors and partners of the museum. They are in the right hand corner and are not distractive. Other than that, there are no advertisements on the website, which makes it sophisticated-looking. It has a lot of interactive elements – hyperlinks, pictures, a calendar, and connections to other organizations’ projects.
The website has online services too. A visitor can purchase entrance tickets, order a field trip, birthday party, membership subscription, and register for volunteering, sponsorship and participation in events.
The website targets parents, teachers and children by providing clear, interesting and comprehensive information on learning topics. To conclude, the website is very informative, interactive, has a lot of multi-media content, and answers all of the questions a visitor might have.
