Experience Design - verb or noun?

A while back I blogged about some of the emerging themes, trends, opportunities and challenges in the museum world – or more broadly speaking, visitor experience design. If I had to summarise the emerging directions in museum experience design philosophy in one word it would be: 'open'.

Rather than banging on further about this brave new world of openness and visitor-generated content (which, by the way, is still talked about in theory a lot more than it is actually used in practice), I thought it would be worthwhile to look at some simple examples of how museums around the world are redefining ‘visitor experience’.

Traditional visitor experience has been framed within the context of stimulus-response type behaviour for a long time. The 19th century ‘cabinet of curiosities’ model has remained largely unchanged for over a hundred years. Look at a thing in a case – read about it. Repeat.   

More recently, museums have become more inventive and, in some cases, a little more daring in the way they think about what constitutes an exhibition, or defines the visitor experience. Of course, this has been met with derision and self-righteous tut-tutting from many inside the establishment, but there's really nothing to be feared from the attempt by many museums and cultural institutions to open their collections (and they way they tell stories) to a broader group of people. 

Here are some examples of institutions or exhibitions that are trying to extend the traditional idea of what a museum should or could be about.

The KlimaX exhibition is based on the concept of water...

Here are the words from the Swedish exhibition designers, Codesign, who best describe what they set out to achieve:

"The concept for KlimaX was to create an exhibition that touches the visitors instead of just informing them; an exhibition that triggers more senses and leaves an ineffaceable memory; an encounter that goes to the stomach rather than to the brain and makes people remember the main message the day after the visit; an experience that will make its way into the small talk around dinner tables and coffee machines. That was our aim."
 
Here are some selected images from the exhibition with a brief description.

The exhibition begins with a departure from the usual – visitors put on a pair of yellow gumboots:



On their way into the actual exhibition space, the corridor leads visitors slowly into water – even the handrail changes temperature (warming up as you move along, corresponding with a increase in the water level around your feet). Note the lack of warning signs from well-meaning but fun-popping Occupational Health and Safety inspectors:



Although the exhibition space is more traditional (visitors are still wading through cold water), large fans make the interpretive panels waver as visitors move through the space. This interferes with reading, so (naturally) I'm not as keen on this idea, and the exhibition designers make a weak justification about the frustration this causes reflecting the ‘ephemeral and unpredictable’ nature of the weather – but at least they have given us a reason for doing it.



Visitors use radio-controlled rubber boats to navigate through the exhibition’s contents – although I’m not sure if there’s any connection between the boats and the content that is viewed.



At the end of the exhibition, visitors take a stand (literally) on how they feel about the various climate change arguments by voting on different topics and questions.



I don’t have any hard data on how successful the exhibition was. It's won several awards and I think the designers have set out to achieve their objectives. I think that it’s nice to see someone trying out a more immersive approach to visitor experience design.  

And in case you’re wondering, I don’t know what the carbon footprint for creating the exhibition was.

Clearly, green is the new black - more about sustainability...

In a related exhibition, also exploring the concept of sustainability through economic, ecological and societal questions is the “Level Green” exhibition from Germany.

It is sponsored by Volkswagen (and located within their very own theme park), so you can make your own call about the motivation behind this exhibition, but there are some nice examples of data sculptures and interactive installations throughout the exhibition. Unfortunately, the photos are not the greatest:



Above: The data sculpture “CO2 Potential Savings” visualises ways to reduce the emission quantity of carbon dioxide.

Below: This clip shows some of the other interactives from the exhibition where visitors can assess the size of their own carbon footprint and so forth based on changes in their own consumer behavior: 

You can view more pictures from the exhibition on their website.

Experience Design - Art or Commerce?

Here are a couple of experiences from the art and business worlds. Obviously, these haven't been ‘designed’ as part of a visitor experience for a museum – but they are clever experiences nonetheless.

Check out this 'wooden mirror' which uses gesture to influence the aesthetic:

What’s the point of this one? I'm not entirely sure. Is it art? Let's not go there. You can be the judge of that (said while perching on fence) … for me it’s interesting, but that’s about it. Once you’ve waved your hands around in front of it a few times, is there anything else that would compel you to do more or think more?  

And from the business world...

This piece is not interactive (although it could be). It's a kinetic sculpture from the BMW museum (which is a glorified car ad, but it’s still quite nicely done) - the music grates, so you may wish to exercise your right to mute:

Integration - do you want to be part of the exhibition?

Increasingly, museums and galleries are integrating visitors into the exhibitions and experiences they create. A lot of the examples in this space are quite rudimentary - here is a typical example of a user and a physical prop (an umbrella) that influences the content on display. There's a lot of this sort of thing happening at the moment...

Design in Crisis from We Love Inc on Vimeo.

...it's still really early days for this kind of experience design.

I think it's encouraging to see but how far have we come from the traditional 19th century ideas of stimulus and response? The technology is a lot smarter and there are far more variations in the responses we can serve up, but are museums and galleries actually weaving visitors into the stories being told in more meaningful (as opposed to superficial) ways?

Do visitors feel more connected to what they have experienced? Or did they just see something that 'looked cool', but immediately forget about it by the time they got home?

Let us know if you can think of any recent experiences or exhibitions that left a lasting impression on you - interactive, digital or otherwise.