Top 10 Tips to Great Museum Exhibit Design

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DESIGNING A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE

When it’s a great experience, going to a museum can teach us, delight us and inspire us; however, a lot of effort goes into a museum exhibit design. As architects, we can learn a lot by understanding the ingredients that make such designs so successful. It’s not as simple as you might think.

A museum is constantly looking for different ways to attract visitors, but what happens once they get there? Often they suffer from three main problems — they can’t find a specific piece of information, they must leave too soon because they are bored or they stay a long time but miss key lessons from the main exhibits. (1)

Obviously, visitor accessibility and attention are paramount, but that’s not all it takes to design for a great museum experience.

WHAT MUSEUMS MUST DO

The following are 10 ingredients for successful museum exhibit design:

1. Motivate Visitors:
   Target an audience — the general public and/or specific communities (1)
2. Focus Content:
   Filter content so visitors are not bombarded with information overload (1)
3. Immersion:
   Engage visitors within a “story” (1)
4. Modularity:
   Present smaller themes instead of one larger complex topic (1)
5. Skimmability:
   Information should be easy to take in because visitors are often standing and/or have different levels of education (1)
6. Patterns:
   Incorporate traffic/circulation patterns, exhibit sequence patterns and pre-existing framework patterns (architectural elements) (1)
7. Capture Curiosity:
   Use storytelling techniques to engage visitors (1)
8. Interaction:
   Give visitors a “fun” experience by tapping into their emotion (1)
9. Integrate Technology:
   Technology should enhance visitor’s experience, not detract from it (1)
10. Layer Content:
    Present information in a hierarchical manner (1)

BEYOND THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE

The latter design secrets apply to more than just museum experiences. Each taps into some common problems that many other architectural building-types face. As an architect, you should “move” your occupants “physically, intellectually and emotionally”. (1)

By taking a closer look at museum exhibit design — you will see such designers are able to tap into the senses as they choreograph different elements like narrative and interaction to spark visitor curiosity. As architectural technology progresses toward more dynamic and interactive solutions, you will have even more ways to give your occupants a “complete” experience. The 10 tips listed above are a good place to start.

(1) Carliner, Saul. Modeling Information for Three-Dimensional Space: Lessons Learned from Museum Exhibit Design. Models, Processes, and Techniques of Information Design.

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