by Maris Ensing, Mad Systems
Museums have long served as cultural anchors, repositories of our collective past, and beacons guiding our shared future. Yet as society evolves and audiences become ever more tech-savvy, museums face new challenges that extend beyond artifacts.
From inclusive design to sustainability, a range of emerging topics now shape how curators and exhibit designers plan, execute, and maintain their projects.
Below, we explore several key considerations that resonate deeply with today’s museums, offering insights for those who seek to keep their institutions at the cutting edge of visitor engagement and cultural stewardship.
1. Visitor-centered design
Why it matters
Today’s visitors arrive with higher expectations for interactivity, personalization, and instant accessibility. A purely object-focused approach, where artifacts remain static and unchanging, is often no longer enough to captivate audiences.
Practical steps
- Adaptive storytelling: Consider tailoring exhibit content, avoiding text panels as they’re static, instead using multimedia or interactive features, to different audience segments (e.g., children, adults, academics, multilingual communities).
- Feedback loops: Install low-friction feedback mechanisms, such as monitoring exhibits or using facial analysis (not necessarily recognition) to see how long visitors are actually at an exhibit, with possible emotion detection, or use digital surveys or interactive kiosks to track how visitors engage and what they find most compelling.
2. Accessibility and inclusivity
Why it matters
Ensuring every visitor feels seen, heard, and welcomed is more than a regulatory requirement; it’s a core responsibility. Effective accessibility measures don’t just help meet legal standards but also broaden the reach of the museum’s mission.
Practical steps
- Physical accessibility: Incorporate clear signage and adjustable-height interactive displays to accommodate visitors with mobility challenges, and a guidance system for visually impaired visitors.
- Sensory considerations: Offer sign language interpretation, braille text, and touch-friendly exhibits with feedback, ideally both audible and tactile.
- Digital inclusion: Provide accessible resources, such as audio-described or captioned video tours, for disabled audiences.
3. Sustainable practices
Why it matters
Museums are custodians of cultural artifacts and our planet’s future. By integrating sustainability into their day-to-day operations and exhibit design, museums can set a powerful example of environmental stewardship.
Practical steps
- Energy management: Adopt LED lighting, smart climate control systems, and energy-efficient AV equipment to reduce operating costs and environmental impact. At night, turn equipment not in use off using proper power management. Don’t just use a ‘standby’ command, or hope a monitor will automatically go into standby when a video signal is lost.
- Waste reduction: Consider digital displays, QR codes to allow visitors access virtual materials in place of paper handouts.
4. Embracing technology thoughtfully
Why it matters
Technology in museums is no longer a novelty; visitors expect it. However, curators and designers must ensure that any digital addition complements, rather than overshadows, the core storytelling elements.
Practical steps
- Purpose-Driven Integration: Introduce personalized content to appeal to a tech-savvy audience that is used to having access to the world’s knowledge on their smart devices.
- Data privacy: If you collect visitor data, be it through mobile apps or interactive kiosks, ensure strict compliance with privacy regulations and transparent data usage policies.
- Future-proofing: Invest in platforms that can adapt to emerging technologies, so your museum can evolve without requiring frequent large-scale overhauls.
See also: Embracing the tech-savvy generation: the next evolution in museum experiences
5. Multiple interpretive layers
Why it matters
Different visitors absorb information differently. Some prefer in-depth text, others thrive on hands-on activities, and still others want digital insights at their fingertips.
Visitors are mostly used to being able to select the exact information they are interested in using their smart devices; give them an experience that at least provides a similar ability, and ideally make it more compelling.
Practical steps
- Tiered content: Provide layered information on multiple levels, and personalize content delivery. “Casual Browsers,” “Avid Enthusiasts,” and “Scholarly Deep Divers” want different content. This should be a parameter that is entered by the visitor when they register onto the system to receive personalized information.
- Multimedia elements: Use soundscapes, videos, “holograms”, interactive projections, and interactive experiences to cater to diverse learning styles.
- Artifact-centric storytelling: Let the artifacts themselves do part of the storytelling, possibly through projection mapping or augmented reality overlays that reveal hidden layers of detail or historical context.
6. Evaluation and continuous improvement
Why it matters
Adapting to changing visitor expectations is a continual process. Effective evaluation strategies can help fine-tune exhibits, ensuring that they remain dynamic and responsive to audience feedback.
Practical steps
- Data collection: Use both qualitative (interviews, comment boards) and quantitative (ticket sales, dwell times, social media engagement) methods to gauge success.
- Iterative upgrades: Embrace a “beta” mindset, be willing to make mid-exhibit modifications based on real-time data, rather than waiting for a full overhaul. If your signage and content is digital, this is a relatively easy option.
- Professional development: Encourage staff to participate in workshops, webinars, and conferences that focus on emerging trends and best practices in museology and design.
- Adaptation of new technologies: Ensure that staff members keep up to date with new technologies such as AI in its various incarnations to ensure that they are at least as knowledgeable as your audience.
- Delivery system selection: Select a media delivery system that can grow with you by ensuring that the equipment on which it is based is non-proprietary so that it is possible to upgrade individual exhibits to keep them up to date as new technology and new visitors’ expectations arise.
Conclusion: the role of museums beyond artifacts
The role of museums in society is evolving as fast as the technology that shapes our daily lives.
For curators and designers, the challenge lies in navigating these shifts while staying true to core missions: education, preservation, and community engagement. By embracing visitor-centered design, prioritizing inclusivity, incorporating sustainable practices, and remaining open to technological and methodological innovation, museums can continue to excel as vibrant, relevant cultural spaces.
In this journey, success hinges on collaboration, not just among museum professionals, but also with the communities that these institutions serve. Through a commitment to ethical, sustainable, and forward-thinking approaches, the museum sector can, and needs to remain a beacon of inspiration and learning for future generations.
The key is to keep listening, iterating, and daring to break new ground, ensuring that museums remain as dynamic and diverse as the audiences they exist to engage.
