ICOM Dubai 2025
The website for the 27th ICOM General Conference, the first ever held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
| Client | International Council of Museums |
|---|---|
| What we built | Conference website |
| Platform | WordPress |
| My role | Head of UX cum Project Manager |
| Live site | dubai2025.icom.museum |
The brief
ICOM's General Conference is often called the Olympics of the museum world. In November 2025 it came to Dubai, with more than a hundred panels, workshops and excursions to keep in sync.
The real test came in the final weeks, when speakers, sessions and logistics changed by the hour. The site had to let several editors publish at once, quickly and without breaking anything.
Built with
UX lead & PM I led UX and ran the publishing operation for a conference that changed by the hour in its final weeks.
What I did
- Designed a modular sitemap: the scientific programme, trip planning and the digital platform.
- Built a library of Gutenberg blocks with the developers, so editors could build pages in days.
- Designed the programme filter by day, theme and committee.
- Planned a mobile-first view of the programme and venue map for use on site.
- Ran the live publishing operation in the final weeks, with several editors at once.
The impact
- 100+panels, workshops and excursions in the programme
- 50+new pages in the final two weeks
- 200+session updates before opening day
- 0downtime during conference week
The call I made
Blocks, not templates
With weeks to go, the content changed daily. Instead of fixed templates we gave editors a library of blocks, so they could build a new page in an afternoon without waiting for a developer.
What shipped
- A sitemap split into the scientific programme, trip planning and the digital platform
- A custom library of Gutenberg blocks for building pages in days
- A programme filter by day, theme and committee
- A mobile-first view of the programme and venue map for use on site
- More than 50 new pages and 200 session updates in the last two weeks
On screen
