The opening screen of the Whitney Museum Web Site has large, but simple graphics, and very few choices. There is no "text-only" option at this site. The second screen has more choices, such as "Director's Welcome," "Exhibitions," " ECHO," "Permanent Collection," "Web projects," and "Library." Some choices are self explanatory, some are not. I would like to see some explanations on the opening screen of the site, to give patrons more of an idea of what they are going to see. The Director's welcome is refreshing due in part to the absence of overt snobbery and 'artspeak.'
The Web projects is an excellent display for the World Wide Web medium. It shows a type of exhibition that cannot be shown in a traditional museum gallery. Here the artists have moved their art into a new direction that can be accessible from desktops all over the world.
I looked at the Edward Hopper exhibition, which had detailed information about the artist and his work, but only a few images of the paintings integrated into the text. The catalog, apparently available from the Museum store, is referred to frequently in the text of the exhibit. The number of images was enough to satisfy me. Some of the links from the thumbnail images to the larger works did not work. The resolution of the larger images is good and all images, that I saw, were marked with a WMAA "stamp" in the lower corner of the images. This is an excellent idea.
There was no indication of when the site was last updated, which I would like to see in the future, and sketchy information about who does the updating.
The Museum Store is not as appealing as the Andy Warhol Museum Store. They mostly provide books and catalogs and the items displayed appear to be unique, rather than the standard fare of cards, T-shirts and mugs.
I look forward to seeing future revisions and updates at this site.