Serpentine
Unlocking 50+ years of content with AI Search.
Brand.
Serpentine is a world-renowned leader in contemporary arts, with a heritage that dates back to 1970’s.
Effect began working with the organisation after being commissioned to develop and deliver their new website in 2020. Since then, they have become Serpentine’s digital partner.
Context.
• Role: Project Lead
• Squad: x1 Developer, x1 Designer
• Date: 2024
• Agency: Effect
DEVELOPMENT
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TECHNOLOGY
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DEVELOPMENT ✰ TECHNOLOGY ✰
BRIEF
Arts and cultural organisations continually face challenges when managing, finding and accessing large quantities of content.
For Serpentine, their heritage dates back to the 1970’s, the decade that coined the term ‘contemporary art’. With so many events, exhibitions and pages, the gallery needed new ways to help visitors navigate their rich history. The solution needed to be easy, fast and accessible based on a number of user intents.
Following a recent streamlining of the Archive, adding new decade-based filtering functionality, we turned our attention to Search.
RESPONSE
The existing Search was receiving a moderate percentage of traffic, but remained a secondary focus aimed at complementing the site user experience.
After uncovering the typical search terms, it was clear visitors were attempting to use the Search to find events, key information about the gallery (ie. opening times) or dig out an artefact that was hidden away. From this research, we knew we needed to bring Search into the spotlight.
TECHNOLOGY
The solution? Algolia. A globally recognised leader in search and product discovery, this powerful tool allows you to configure the ultimate experience suited to your needs. Leveraging Algolia’s API provided a way for us to deliver fast, performant results in real-time specifically tailored to Serpentine.
We indexed all of Serpentine’s events, and then ranked them using a custom record ‘Priority’ attribute. This system valued each piece of content 1-9 based on purpose, ensuring visitors would be served the most relevant and important content first.
RESULTS
The new technology has so far contributed to a higher site wide engagement rate (YoY), and almost double the number of visitors using the Search while browsing. (5,964 to 8,790).
“A big thank you to Effect and the team for all their hard work in getting this live! We're excited to see the new version up and running.”
FREYA DOGGETT, DIGITAL MARKETING OFFICER