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Filters Beat Search Bars On Culture Websites

September 22, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Supercool Design in the UK released a small study this summer with information I didn’t know I wanted.

They examined the use of search filters on cultural organizations’ websites. Not something I really ever thought I wanted to know, but was curious to read about once I knew the data existed.

The big finding was….people aren’t using filters as much as you might think.

Even on the website where filters got used the most – with twenty-seven pages of event listings – nearly half of all users ignored the filters altogether.

Moreover, even when people did use the filters, they tended to just use one, maybe two. Across our sample the most-used filters were genre, date, and then either location (where this was an option) or audience type (e.g. kids shows versus adult shows). This was true no matter if a website had three filters or nine: the vast majority of visitors only used one filter, and it was most often either ‘date’ or ‘genre’.

Source

Another interesting insight was that when filters are hidden, people don’t use them. Yeah I know, you’re thinking “No duh!” What they found was when filters were concealed under Advanced Options, they didn’t get used. When filters are revealed, people use them a lot more. In the case of the British Museum, the use of filters “jumped massively.”

Though they also revealed that for many websites, the three filters appearing on the top of the list got used the most.

They suggest making all the filters visible and if you are concerned about the clutter that results, consider whether you really need the terms you would relegate to Advanced Options.

The final insight that provided was a little counter-intuitive. People use search bars less than they use filters. They observe it seems strange that people would rather hunt through filter terms than type a few terms in a search bar, but that is what happens.

The only exception we saw to this was in that user testing with the British Library. Here, visitors initially used the listing page search bar more – but only when the filters were hidden behind an “Advanced options” toggle. When we made all the filters visible, people favoured using these to find the information they were looking for.

Source

Arts in an Age of Technology

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What Music Offices Can Do For The Local Music Scene

September 21, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Matt Mandrella advocates for every city having a music office in a recent Fast Company piece. He cites the impact of music offices in Texas, Tulsa, and Huntsville.

He says you don’t get these results from just booking shows. The disjointed efforts of individual entities is often inefficient and results in duplicated efforts. Music offices can streamline and coordinate efforts and perhaps most importantly, can work to develop the infrastructure, policy, and support networks for venues, artists, schools, restaurants, and allied businesses.

A good illustration of this is found in a blog post I wrote last November on another Fast Company article Mandrella authored on Huntsville’s efforts to support house concerts. The city was providing support in everything from noise ordinance training, advice on forming LLCs, and pointing would be venues to ticketing services.

Arts Midwest published some related research this past summer.

He offers advice for forming music offices, advocating for the solicitation of feedback and input all the entities in the municipality from the largest to the smallest, most commercial to most niche. It shouldn’t just be the venues, musicians, equipment and labor providers and businesses directly associated with performances, but also schools and other entities contributing to the development of the local talent pipeline.

Second, it is important to prioritize local ownership, legacy venue protections, and underrepresented artists in program design. Who has typically been left on the sidelines and needs a megaphone? Where do you have the most impact opportunity?

Lastly, do not underestimate the importance of the less exciting aspects of a successful music sector: zoning reform, noise ordinances, and affordability policies needed to accompany cultural investment to prevent gentrification and inequities

Source

Government Relations, Legal Topics, Working In The Arts

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Community Doesn’t Perceive Same Benefits As Arts Insiders

September 16, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

h/t to David John Baker who tagged an article on Arts Professional UK that reviewed a study showing that the public doesn’t view the benefits of the arts in the same way arts professionals do.

Essentially, while arts professionals cite well-being, community building, and placemaking as benefits, the general public feels that the arts are good for tourism, economy, and heritage.

It may just be that arts professionals have only been talking about well-being, community, placemaking as benefits relatively recently and that messaging hasn’t permeated the general public conversations yet.

There was also a feeling among Britons participating in the survey that the arts were for upper class people and urban dwellers.

Another key finding was that the public perceives culture to primarily benefit wealthy and upper class people (both 77%) and people who live in cities (71%).

In contrast, poorer people sit at 28% while only 51% said “people like them” benefit at all….

Only 39% said more arts and culture near them would improve where they live more than other things; 54% say other things would improve their area more. Only Progressive Activists “lean the other way with conviction” on this point.

The report says: “This is not scepticism about culture so much as a country being asked to rank a theatre or a museum against, for example, potholes, buses or the high street.”

Source

While the percentages and perceptions in Britain may be different than in the US or Canada, the general perception is likely the same in both countries.

If the arts and culture community is going to talk about arts and culture improving well-being and communities, there needs to be better communication drawing a line between the work being done and better quality of life that has resulted.

Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Marketing/PR

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Real Play Isn’t Meant To Prepare For More Work

September 15, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Justin Neuman wrote a piece about play for Aeon recently. In the piece he talks about the Greek ideals regarding different type of play as well as the thoughts of different philosopher on the topic.

A fair bit of the way down, I perked up at a statement he makes that aligns with my opposition to the prescriptive use of doses of art and culture to solve problems.

Neuman writes (my emphasis)

Simply put: adults need play as desperately as children do – a zone where inner life meets outer materiality and something unpredictable emerges…A person who never plays is as disordered as one who never works. I’m not talking about ‘work-life balance’, an exhausted metaphor that still treats play as recovery time for the next productive thing. To practise the virtue of eutrapelia means that a good life requires play. You don’t earn it. You practise it, daily.

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I think there is a connection between this sentiment and the idea that arts and culture are something that are nice to have, but not necessary. The idea that play is the reward for working and what you do to recharge so you have the energy to work again turns play into a utilitarian companion for labor.

Neuman cites examples of the value he and others like Nietzsche, Rousseau, and Einstein, and a Stanford University study have found walking distances have had for creative thinking and problem solving.

I vacillated between thinking these examples could be viewed as a prescriptive use of walking for problem solving or as examples of people who integrated a balance of work and play into their process. Just as with the arts, I think it is too easy to interpret these examples as “just add walking to help you solve problems.”

Especially since the Stanford research found that treadmills were just as effective at inspiring divergent thinking and generating multiple solutions as walking about in nature.

Neuman ends the piece essentially noting that play is truly valuable to humans when they aren’t focused on keeping score about how many good ideas they can squeeze from X amount of intentional play.

The capacity for play – the willingness to stop optimising, to sit on the floor, to walk without a destination, to make something and give it away – embraces a virtue with an old name: eutrapelia. It is the habit of playing well. The ordinary magic of being real.

Source

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, creativity, Working In The Arts

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