2025

The Met Museum

MFA Project, SVA

What if a digital exhibition felt as considered as being there in person?

Many museum websites treat online exhibitions as documentation. Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie at The Met was an immersive, multilayered experience that deserved a web presence to match. The result is a digital experience built around how people actually move through a gallery.

Instructor: Erica Heinz  |  Imagery: The Met

Existing online exhbit for The Met’s Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie

The Brief

Major museum websites treat online exhibitions as documentation, but an exhibition spanning nearly 200 historical and contemporary works, including installations by Asian and Asian American women artists, deserved something more immersive. The brief was to reimagine what an online exhibition could feel like.

The solution

The result is a dual-mode experience built around how people navigate physical space. Explore Mode lets visitors move through all 200 works in an organic, scattered layout, proximity and intention driving discovery rather than pagination. Tour Mode offers guided pathways led by selectable voices spanning disciplines, reflecting the exhibition's feminist methodology of honoring multiple perspectives.

Mode switching accessible from a persistent bottom bar alongside zoom controls, filters, and exhibit info.

Two Navigational Modes

User research revealed that visitors approach exhibitions with two distinct mindsets: some want curatorial guidance, others prefer to wander freely. This led to two interaction modes: a guided Tour Mode and a self-directed Explore Mode.

Navigate by proximity

Enter and see the full collection, move closer to reveal object titles, click to open a focused detail view.

Explore Mode

Explore Mode is built around a zoom-level interaction pattern that translates physical gallery behavior into digital navigation.

Navigate by proximity

Each zoom level offers a payoff — progressive disclosure surfaces curatorial interpretation, artist, date, medium, and dimensions

The solution prioritizes art over interface — minimal UI, neutral backgrounds, and contextual information that appears only when needed

Arrow navigation enables browsing between objects without returning to the gallery view. 

Filters allow users to sort artifacts by color, date, and material.

Tour Mode

Tour Mode offers guided pathways through the collection, with selectable audio guides spanning disciplines.

Guide selection includes exhibit artist Patty Chang, associate curator Iris Moon, musician and writer Michelle Zauner, and actress Lana Condor — reflecting the exhibition's feminist methodology of honoring multiple voices.

Instagram posts link directly to the exhibit landing page, meeting audiences in the spaces they already inhabit.