Analyzing the Users of MoMA Online Education Events

This is a summary of my research that was conducted as part of the INFO 685 course: Digital Analytics: MoMA Online Education Events Analytics Report undertaken by Rachel Jackson, Anna Size, Alan Webber, Kira Zimmerman, and me.

INTRODUCTION

Between March and April 2021, our group conducted a digital analysis of MoMA’s website. The purpose of our inquiry was to measure the traffic of the MoMA Education site pages and media channels, understand the audience, find the most successful programs, and define KPIs for the MoMA Education Department.

MY ROLE

In this group project, I specifically analyzed MoMA Education’s audience diversity, the percentage of www.moma.org users who also visited /calendar/events pages, MoMA family education events, and MoMA Education videos on YouTube.

METHODOLOGY

As a lead data analyst, I developed the project through the stages of data collection, data analytics, and data visualization. Data collected consist of content on MoMA Google Analytics account, event details on an online programs spreadsheet, and information harvested via YouTube Data Tools. Our group splitted the data into two time frames — pre-COVID-19 (January 1, 2019 - January 1, 2020) and post-COVID-19 (March 1, 2020 - March 1, 2021). Also, we utilized Google Data Studio to visualize data.

PROCESS

Part 1: Find out the percentage of www.moma.org users who also visited /calendar/events pages

I conducted this research by adding filters in a new segment I created on Google Analytics. The filter selected users visited pages contain /calendar/events and users visited other popular pages on www.moma.org. Then I inported the results into Google Spreadsheets and calculated the percentage of users also visited /calendar/events pages.

Part 2: Check audience diversity

For the date range of pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19, I both selected Users as the metrics and chose Gender, Age, Device, Country, City, and Language as the dimensions to take a look at the audience diversity of MoMA general education events.

Part 3: Deep dive into family education events

Via Google Data Studio, I visualized MoMA family education events to have an overview based on three KPIs we selected, which are Users, Content, Promotion.

Part 4: Evaluate MoMA Education videos on YouTube

I inported the data collected from YouTube Data Tools into Google Data Studio. Then I checked the post quantity/frequency and content performance of videos in MoMA Youtube Channel’s Education Category.

MY FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS

Finding 1: Users of /audio/ pages, /calendar/exhibitions/ pages, /visit/ pages

Before COVID-19, users coming from /calendar/events frequently visited /audio/, /calendar/exhibitions, /visit/, and /collection/ pages on the MoMA website. Traffic to /visit/ and /collection/ remained the most frequently visited pages for Education visitors during the pandemic, though from March 1, 2020 to March 1, 2021. In addition, /audio/ pages had the highest percentage of users who also interested in Education.

The MoMA Education team could connect education events to /audio/, /calendar/exhibitions, /visit/, and /collection/ pages on the MoMA website to better facilitate user journeys. This will optimize online and on-site visitor experience, allowing visitors to more easily find and engage with Education at MoMA.

Finding 2: User type of MoMA general education events

The number of users outside of New York and the United States and users speaking non-English languages increased during the pandemic. There was a large drop in users whose location was set to New York City, showing how much of the audience left the area. Before the pandemic, 48.9% of visits were from New York, whereas this number was only 18.9% of the total afterward.

The MoMA education team could continue providing virtual education events. This format, though not always as popular when compared with in-person education, extremely enhances the accessibility to users outside of New York & the United States.

Finding 3: User type of MoMA family education events

Different from MoMA general education events during the pandemic, about half of the family education events users were returning users. Also, there was a high percentage of the family education events users who were in the United States and spoke English.

Based on the fact that there were more family education events users in the United States and spoke English, focusing on creating family education events that meet the local U.S. audience’s expectations could be a good way to increase the number of attendees. Also, nearly half of the family education users were returning users, which means the improvements based on the in-house visitor research program’s survey would be more suitable to family education events than general education events during post-COVID time period.

Finding 4: Captions of MoMA education videos on YouTube

From March 1, 2020 to March 1, 2021, MoMA posted 86 education videos on its YouTube channel. But, there were only four education videos with captions. Although the average view count was lower than other education videos with no captions, their engagement rate was much higher.

Adding captions could make the education videos more engaging. Speakers of non-English languages can also be catered to with the use of captions. By uploading past events to YouTube, or broadcasting live from the service, viewers who speak other languages can find and watch any videos with subtitles. Same-language captions also make lectures available for deaf or hard-of-hearing listeners.

CONCLUSION

MoMA’s Department of Education is a leader in the field of art education. For over eighty years, it has creatively and innovatively found ways to further its core educational mission. Providing educational content for diverse audiences is the strength of MoMA Education, but also brought challenges to the MoMA education team in understanding and tracking them. The results of this analysis revealed five main areas for improvement: General Education Events, Family Education Events, YouTube Education, Peer Comparison, and KPIs. These findings were addressed in more detail in the final analytics report compiled by all five members in the group. Overall, our team found the MoMA Education events to be engaging, creative, and illuminating. By implementing our recommendations, we feel that MoMA can increase reach, remove barriers to participation, and further grow the global community of learners it has created.

Client Feedback

The analytics report did remind our client the facts they haven't expected and the things they haven't thought of, which include the drop in total and returning users, the drop of New York & the US users, users were expecting education info on /audio/ pages, and most of the YouTube Channel’s Education videos didn’t have captions during the pandemic. Although the report has the potential in enhancing its correctness, the client still found most of our findings and recommendations were very relevant to the improvement of their education events.

REFLECTION

From the beginning of this project, we faced a limitation with keeping completely accurate on the overall analysis of the data, since MoMA Education pages are not specifically earmarked. We are also facing a challenge with detailing the user-tracking, since MoMA already has a dedicated digital team that helped the MoMA education team to check their users’ data, and they needed us to dive even more deeper in this project. I recognized the difficulties, and I learnt a lot by trying my best to provide rich, relevant, and meaningful findings & recommendations in this limited and challenging circumstance.

If I am able to continue working on this project, the next thing I would do is make the analysis more specific for the MoMA education events by cleaning the data we collected. I would try to combine all MoMA Education’s URLs into a filter to enhance the correctness of our analytics result. Also, I would take a look at Wufoo analytics, which is MoMA’s registration system. I would cross-reference the Google Analytics and Wufoo Analytics to see who actually registered to attend the education events.