MCN 2026

For the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), the answer is clear: increase in-person visitation and help the museum reach its goal of one million annual visits. But like many institutions, Mia’s website was not originally designed with that level of strategic specificity. It functioned as a broad information resource—useful, but not intentionally structured to drive visits, guide decisions, or build ongoing relationships with audiences.




In this session, Mia and Forum One share how they are approaching the challenge of rethinking the website’s role as part of a broader, cross-functional system. The work began with detailed end-to-end service blueprinting, mapping visitor journeys across digital and physical touchpoints to understand how marketing, content, staff interactions, and technology systems intersect to shape the experience. This process surfaced critical gaps: moments where interest is generated but not converted, and where no single team owns the full journey.




Building on this foundation, the team is applying a Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) approach to focus on what visitors are actually trying to accomplish—such as planning a visit or discovering events. By defining these jobs, the team can better understand the systems required to support them and identify targeted opportunities to reduce friction and improve outcomes.




The session includes an interactive mapping activity where participants will map a visitor journey and the systems that support it, making visible the cross-functional nature of their own organizations. From this shared view, presenters will introduce a practical approach to identifying small, testable improvements tied to specific moments in the journey.




As institutions develop a clearer understanding of user pathways and patterns, they unlock new opportunities to experiment with growth loops—designing experiences that encourage repeat visits, sharing, and deeper engagement over time. Rather than optimizing for one-time interactions, this approach supports more intentional, repeatable audience growth.




Attendees will leave with a framework for approaching their own work: not as a one-time redesign effort, but as an ongoing, iterative process for improving systems that support real-world outcomes.