MountVernon.org Engages Audiences in New Ways through Digital Resources and Interactive Features
MOUNT VERNON, VA – America’s most visited historic home has just completed a significant digital renovation. Mount Vernon has introduced a new website, MountVernon.org, teeming with engaging interactive features, vivid imagery, and compelling content that brings George Washington and his estate to life in revolutionary ways. Appealing to future visitors, students, teachers, and history lovers alike, the website gives Mount Vernon an exciting new platform that is mobile and tablet friendly to better present the stories of Washington’s life, his lasting influence, and his beloved Mount Vernon estate.
“This new website is packed with content designed to position Mount Vernon as the go-to online source to learn more about Washington and his era,” said Robert Shenk, Mount Vernon’s senior vice president of visitor engagement. “The features are exciting and appealing to the young, tech-savvy audiences we are trying to reach.”
An interactive map makes it easy for visitors to explore the estate on their tablets and smart phones while on the grounds or while planning a visit. By clicking on a point of interest, a visitor sees a quick description of the location and a photo, along with links to learn more about important trip-planning tools, such as an easy-to-navigate calendar of events and detailed descriptions of tours and programs are also incorporated into the site’s design.
A new animated multimedia presentation, Now or Never: The Yorktown Campaign of 1781, gives audiences an unprecedented look at Washington’s decisive actions during the Battle of Yorktown. Through its use of cutting-edge animations, gripping live action sequences, and good old-fashioned storytelling, Mount Vernon and Wide Awake Films have reintroduced this important story in America’s history through a sophisticated media presentation. This fresh look at the storied battle is tailor-made for students, teachers, and other lifelong learners who want to be informed as well as entertained.
Did Washington really sleep there? The Washington’s World Interactive Map attempts to answer that question. The estate teamed up with Washington College’s Geographic Information Systems to create an interactive map showing places with that could document a visit from the General. Visitors can mine more than 1,100 locations that Washington visited, from churches to taverns to battlefields. Visitors are also invited to help Mount Vernon fill in the blanks by volunteering new locations or by supplying additional details about these points of interest.
The site provides a sleek and modern platform for Mount Vernon’s growing library of videos, which feature in-house experts and other notables, including Colin Powell. An enthusiastic student of history and an ardent admirer of Washington, Powell needed little prompting to relate his thoughts on the first president: “He turned his failures into successes when he demonstrated that he was a person of substance a person with a mission and a purpose.”
To create its new site, Mount Vernon partnered with Fastspot, an award-winning interactive agency based in Baltimore. Fastspot’s designers crafted a sleek platform that effectively showcases Mount Vernon’s imagery, videos, and seemingly limitless content. At the same time, the site is responsively designed, making it easy for users to purchase admission tickets, buy items from the shops, and make a donation, whether they accessing the site from a desktop computer or a mobile device.
URLs:
Website: http://www.MountVernon.org/
Now or Never: The Yorktown Campaign of 1781: http://www.MountVernon.org/Yorktown
Washington’s World Interactive Map: http://www.MountVernon.org/Washingtons-World
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