Design and technology for a museum experience

A museum interaction begins with a person and a subject. What should the visitor notice, understand or try? What should change when they make a choice? The answers shape the physical exhibit, the media and the software that connects them.

A useful brief describes that encounter before it lists equipment. It identifies the audience, language and access needs, the available space and the staff who will operate the experience. Designers and engineers can then develop the different parts around a shared purpose.

For the Museum of Teaching and Learning’s Your Baby’s Amazing Brain, Mad helped turn a road trailer into a mobile exhibition. Visitors use a touchscreen to explore regions of a projection-mapped brain sculpture. The physical model and the screen explain the same subject together.

At Warner Bros. Studio Tour London, Mad scripted, shot and assembled gigapixel photography, produced graphics and programmed eleven Hogwarts Castle Model stations. Detailed imagery and interactive software give visitors another way to explore the physical film model.

These examples draw on different combinations of design, imagery, software and fabrication. The common design question is how the visitor’s action connects with the thing they are trying to understand.

A prototype can answer a focused question: can someone reach the control, understand the response, hear the narration or see the projected detail? It might combine a physical mock-up, representative media and enough software to exercise the interaction.

Choose the test around the decision. A paper interface can help examine a sequence; a physical control needs to be tried at the intended height and reach. Projection and sound may require representative surfaces, light and room conditions. Record what the prototype establishes and which questions still depend on the finished installation.

A working prototype is a useful milestone. Installation brings further conditions: the final content, neighboring exhibits, ambient light, acoustics, visitor movement and the operator workflow. Commissioning should check the agreed experience under those relevant conditions.

At the Albert Robles Center, digital interpretation and physical exhibits share the learning gallery. The entire center can change between English and Spanish within seconds. A brief for a similarly complete language experience needs to connect text, narration, interfaces and content approval across the whole journey.

An early concept may need a requirements brief. A developed design may need one interaction prototyped or an interface resolved. An operating exhibit may need a focused assessment of what visitors and staff are experiencing now.

Mad can contribute that defined design and engineering scope alongside your team. The starting point is the intended result and the decision you need to make.