Miraikan - The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation Official website renewal

Design for the entire site

Miraikan's activities range in a variety of themes at different scales from exhibitions, events, and facility information for visitors to research involving local citizens and experts, content spreading information related to science and society, daily blogs written by SCs, and much more. We organized the renewal with future expandability in mind, setting up navigation groups which bring together familiar contents relating to exhibitions, information dissemination and popularization, and research and surveys. We also based our design and construction on a degree suitable to Level AA of WCAG 2.0 from the initial half of the project.

UI design conscious of multi-device usage

We have created a UI design which responds to display on three devices: smartphone, tablet, and PC. For the base color, we used blue as it is the color Miraikan identifies itself with and established color schemes as well as text settings for easy viewing.
We also anticipated the conditions of use on each device and designed the site so that the main navigation bar would be located on the top, bottom, or left-hand side for easy use.

Measures taken to show the scale of the museum's interior

Permanent exhibitions, regular programs, and equipment are on display across several floors in the museum. We've used graphics and numbers for each floor on the ""Floor Plan"" page to let users grasp locations within the museum before visiting.
We have conveyed the locations of exhibits using those same graphics on the three permanent exhibition theme pages (""Explore the frontiers"", ""Create your future"", and ""Discover your Earth"").

Connection to information on exhibitions

Miraikan's permanent exhibitions—its core activity—have different themes, but all offer mechanisms and questions regarding science. We connected the Science Communicator Blog component related to these aspects and the "Detailed Explanations" section available from QR codes at the exhibitions to encourage further understanding of the exhibitions' contents.

Showing Miraikan's recommended tours

""Recommended Tours"", which shows various features in the museum, such as exhibits, the Dome Theater, regular daily held programs, and facilities like the restaurant, was added in conformance with the themes established by Miraikan.
It offers information which might make people touring the commercially rich Odaiba and Tokyo Waterfront City areas consider Miraikan as one of their destinations.

Science Communicator Blog

Miraikan is home to Science Communicators (SCs) with diverse backgrounds. We included blogs by these SCs which talk about the appeal and workings of science and technology related to everyday life, society, and the future in the renewal. We also made an effort to offer articles in a design allowing for easy reading and made it so you could see the face of the SC who wrote the article as well as their background in an easy-to-understand manner.
Linking the blogs to the SC introductions on the Miraikan site also acted as a guide to easily understanding part of Miraikan's mission to train and produce its SCs.

System reform

For this project, we employed Movable Type SmartSync Pack for development from scratch. We did away with the over ten-year-old templates and data received and re-established a CMS, database, and more in an optimal form for a faster system.
In addition, we were mindful of multilingual operation on the management screen, customized it for simple use by the administrator, and incorporated a centralized management system for some of the contents.