We’re now redesigning Whitney Museum’s website. August has been the “discovery” phase of the project. We’ve been meeting with each department and working group at the Whitney, for about an hour each – more than 40 meetings this month. Our goal this month is to understand what the Whitney is, what it does, and how it works, from many internal perspectives as well as at the boundaries with the Whitney’s publics. And also, of course, to ask what the new website should do. This has been a fascinating process. For example, membership, education, marketing, and curatorial departments have very different, but equally compelling, perspectives on what it means to be a visitor to the Whitney – a set of perspectives we hope to weave together in the new whitney.org. We’ve really enjoyed meeting everyone and immersing ourselves in this place. It’s a special institution, and we’ve often found ourselves identifying with many of its aspects and aspirations.

We entered the project with just a couple stated goals: Make the website editable by everyone at the Whitney, so its content can grow organically and unexpectedly, rather than tend toward obsolescence; and reorganize the website so its content is shaped around visitors’ interests, rather than around the shadows of a series of internal structures and initiatives at the Whitney. We plan to determine all other goals, including visual ones, only starting in September.