SerpentineAlgolia Search

Serpentine is a world-renowned leader in contemporary arts, formed of two galleries connected by the bridge crossing Serpentine Lake, of which the galleries received their distinctive name. Serpentine South is known for the annual Pavilion architecture, the newer Serpentine North hosts a variety of exhibitions all-year-round.

We began working with the organisation after being commissioned to develop and deliver their new website back in 2020.

Since then, we’ve become one of Serpentine’s key digital partners. Working closely with the Engagement Team, our mission is to continually amplify their web presence, and ensure their prestigious history is translated online. 

Most recently, we simplified the navigation and content, successfully driving visitor footfall at the galleries after the global pandemic.

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.

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. 

To solidify this decision, we investigated similar arts and cultural organisations which faced similar challenges. Upon doing so, we were inspired by the number of ways content was being delivered across London-based galleries and afar. It also showed dramatic potential to offer a Search experience others may not have yet.

Our key UX suggestions based on research was to:

• Add responsive categories based on your search

• Add multiple content view options (ie. grid / list)

• Add editable search query fields

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.

48%  increase in interaction.

Moving to Algolia hasn’t just provided a faster and more relevant experience to all visitors. 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).