Designing for Discovery: Q&A on Digital Strategy, UX, and Website Transformation at The Field Museum

Transforming a strategic plan into an actionable digital roadmap

Challenge

The Field Museum is a world-renowned research institution and one of Chicago’s most iconic cultural landmarks. They had an ambitious strategic plan for their digital future, but were struggling to turn strategy into action. The organization was grappling with siloed departments, a long history of legacy systems and disjointed processes, and a tendency for ad-hoc requests to derail existing plans. A new team was taking on increased ownership of digital strategy, but lacked the tools to move forward effectively. We recognized that what they needed was a repeatable, objective framework that could evaluate opportunities fairly, break down organizational silos, and build stakeholder buy-in across the museum — transforming their strategic ambitions into a clear, executable roadmap.

Solution

We created a custom prioritization framework that combined multiple methodologies to evaluate 80+ digital opportunities gathered from stakeholder interviews across the museum. We translated the criteria and goals most important to the organization—strategic alignment, audience value, effort, and confidence—into a custom scoring system that provided objective, defensible rankings. Through collaborative workshops, we transformed these scores into a balanced roadmap that mixed quick wins with long-term strategic initiatives. The result was not just a roadmap, but an operational system that allows the Field Museum to continuously evaluate new proposals, build trust and buy-in across the organization, and maintain strategic focus as their digital presence evolves.

Results

The strategic roadmap set the stage for transformative work ahead, with the website redesign emerging as the first major initiative to launch. Beyond the website, the museum now has both the vision and the operational tools to continuously prioritize and execute digital initiatives, ensuring their strategic plan becomes a reality one well-considered project at a time.

The roadmap gives us a filter for decisions. Instead of reacting to whatever feels urgent, we can ask, 'Does this move us toward where we want to go?' It’s helped us prioritize what we tackle now, what we plan for later, and what may not fit at all. It’s already making conversations about resources and staffing more focused.

ROB ZSCHERNITZ, Chief Technology Officer, The Field Museum