Perhaps these concerns sound familiar:
r Visitors complain that they cannot find information
of interest. One observes, “I know there’s information
about that type of robotics here, but darned if I
can find it.”
r Visitors enter the site but don’t stay particularly long.
Some might even express an interest in the subject;
let’s say it’s modern art. But they leave almost as
quickly as they enter without paying much attention
to the artwork that the designers painstakingly displayed.
r Other visitors spend hours at the site but never seem
to notice particular sections. For example, a visitor
might be thoroughly familiar with the content on
radios but oblivious to the section on industrial
hardware.
These observations could describe visitors to Web
sites, none of which are more than 10 years old. Actually,
these observations describe museum visitors. As a type of
institution, the museum has existed for nearly three centuries,
and these concerns are nothing new to museum exhibit
designers. Since the first research in the late 1920s and
early 1930s, museum professionals have observed visitor
behavior and, in response, transformed exhibit design
practices (Chambers 1999). These practices were further
refined in the 1960s to 1980s as museums redefined their
mission, from warehouses of artifacts to institutions of
informal learning (that is, learning without a predetermined
outcome) (Bloom and Powell 1984).
I systematically observed current exhibit design practices
as part of an extended study. The primary purpose of
that study was to see how practices from my primary field
of study, instructional design (whose primary focus is on
formal learning in the classroom, through workbooks, and
online, with predetermined outcomes) transferred to the
design of informal learning in museums.
An interpretation of these observations yielded a more
flexible perspective on instructional design (Carliner 1998).
It also yielded a number of communication practices that
could be transferred from the community of museum exhibit
designers to the community of information designers.
Sharing that second set of interpretations is my purpose
here.
Following a brief description of the research project, I
share 8 lessons, or categories of practices, that I observed.
For each lesson, I first describe in detail what I observed in
museums. Immediately afterwards, I suggest how information
designers might apply these lessons when working on
technical communication products. I close with some
broader thoughts about these lessons.
“WHAT SEPARATES A MUSEUM WORTH SUFFERING FOR
FROM ONE YOU WOULDN9T STOOP TO BE SICK IN?”
So wondered Judith Stone, writing in a special 1993 issue of
Discover that focused on the emotional and educational
impact of science museums on scientists and science writers.
I asked myself the same question.
Museums have always fascinated me because they are
some of the most complex and successful forms of scientific
and technical communication. To answer the same
question as Judith Stone, then transfer the lessons learned
Manuscript received 21 June 2000; revised 19 September 2000;
accepted 25 September 2000.
66 TechnicalCOMMUNICATION ² Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001
back to the professional communities of instructional and
information designers, I undertook a qualitative study of
the design for three permanent exhibitions in history and
technology museums, and related background and follow-
up research.
The primary purpose of the study was to understand
how members of the design team addressed instructional
issues as they designed exhibits and to see which design
practices for formal learning transferred to the design for
informal learning in museum exhibits. The exhibits were
purposely selected and included exhibits on
r The history of a major city in the U.S. at an urban
history museum
r The history of the canning industry in the late 19th
century at an industrial history museum in the U.S.
r Computer and telecommunications networks at a
high technology museum in the U.S.
In the main study, each member of the “core” design
team was interviewed three times. Core team members are
those who play a primary role in designing and developing
the exhibit. These team members include
r An idea generator who devises the concept for the
exhibit, chooses the content, and writes the “storyline”
(a detailed description of the exhibit and the
preliminary draft of copy for the labels that appear
in the exhibit)
r The exhibit designer, who prepares the physical design
of the exhibit, including its floor plan and
graphic identity; chooses wall and floor coverings;
designs display cases; and prepares blue prints
r An idea implementer who acts as a general contractor
of sorts for the exhibit, securing objects for the
exhibit that are not in the museum collection, overseeing
the work of the peripheral team (specialists
who implement the plans), ensuring conservation of
items to be displayed, and making sure that the design
is implemented according to plans
For each exhibit, members of the peripheral team were
also interviewed when feasible. These team members provide
specialized skills needed to develop a part of the
exhibition. Skills needed on the peripheral team vary
among exhibits. Typically, this team includes a museum
ducator (whose job is to develop programs geared toward
school groups that are related to the exhibit content),
public programs coordinator (whose job is to develop
programs geared toward adults and the general public),
registrar (whose job is to oversee the documentation and
protection of objects in exhibits), media specialists (including
video and interactive specialists), and editor (whose job
is to edit the copy for all labels and gallery guides associated
with an exhibition). In addition to the interviews, I
observed team meetings and reviewed project plans when
feasible.
The study followed the grounded-theory methodology.
A central feature of this methodology is constant
comparative analysis. That is, data is constantly analyzed
throughout the data collection process to devise theories;
collected data is later compared with the evolving theory to
determine whether it supports the theory (Strauss and
Corbin 1994, p. 273). Strauss and Corbin suggest a threephase
process for analyzing data. The first phase is open
coding, which they define as “the process of breaking
down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing, and categorizing
data.” The next phase is axial coding, “a set of
procedures whereby data [is] put back together in new
ways after open coding, by making connections between
categories” (Strauss and Corbin 1990, p. 96). The last phase
is selective coding, “the process of selecting the core category,
systematically relating it to other categories, validating
those relationships, and filling in categories that need
further refinement and development” (1990, p. 116).
Whenever they are coding, researchers mainly look for
dominant patterns—patterns that appear in all sites studied.
Researchers also look for weak patterns: ones that
occur in at least two sites. Researchers try to explain why a
weak pattern might not be observed at the other sites.
Besides the core research for this study, I conducted
preliminary and follow-up research. This research consisted
of a literature review; observations of visitor behavior
in a science center in a large city in the U.S.; visits to
over 200 museums in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia;
and participation in two conferences and other events for
museum exhibit designers.
1. “DID ANYONE TARGET AN AGE GROUP?”
What I observed in museums
Because visits to museums are voluntary in nature, museum
staffs must motivate people to visit (Csikzentmihalyi
and Hermanson 1995). First, museum staffs must motivate
visitors to enter the building. To do that, they must work
past an impression among the public that museums are
primarily intended for people from upper economic classes
and the majority religious and racial groups (Zolberg 1994).
Such impressions have, in the past, made people from
outside of those groups feel unwelcome in museums. This
challenge is similar to that faced by businesses that want to
sell products and services outside of their countries or to
historically marginalized groups like women, African
Americans, Latinos, and gays and lesbians.
To address this concern, museums have attempted to
broaden their constituencies. This is a policy of the mu-
The study followed the groundedtheory
methodology.
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Carliner Lessons Learned from Museum Exhibit Design
Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 ² TechnicalCOMMUNICATION 67
seum profession backed by practices in specific museums.
Believing that diversity behind the scenes is essential to
representing diversity elsewhere in museums (including
exhibits), museums have established formal relationships
with constituency groups. For example, the high technology
museum in this study has an advisory board of lowincome
children, and the Brooklyn Museum has an outreach
project with the surrounding neighborhood.
Museums have also made a concerted effort to broaden the
socio-economic, gender, and ethnic backgrounds of their
staffs and boards, and continue to do so (Hirzy 1992).
These behind-the-scenes changes are reflected in exhibits
that have a different type of appeal than in the past.
In some instances, exhibits are designed to appeal to the
general public. Called “blockbusters,” they are temporary
exhibits (running from a few months to a year), focusing on
well-known topics with broad public interest; they are
primarily intended to lure large numbers of visitors (Lee
1994). One of the first was the 1979 King Tut exhibit that
visited major art museums, and it has been followed by
blockbusters such as the Monet exhibit that visited the Art
Institute of Chicago in 1995 and the Titanic exhibit that
visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in
2000. Museums can see attendance surge by as much as 33
to 50 percent during a blockbuster.
ther exhibits are designed to appeal to targeted constituencies,
ones whom museums typically ignored in the
past. Some of these exhibits are temporary, like the retrospective
of African-American artist Jacob Lawrence at the
High Museum of Art in Atlanta and an exhibit on the
contributions of women engineers at the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia.
Some exhibits for targeted audiences are permanent,
like the First People’s galleries in the Canadian Museum of
Civilization in Ottawa. Following its most recent renovation,
the Minneapolis Institute of Arts devoted half of its
permanent gallery space to non-Western art. Previously,
such art occupied less than a third of the gallery space.
Within these exhibits, staffs design interpretive materials
like labels (signs within the exhibit that contain explanatory
text) and media presentations. When developing
these materials, staffs take into account the diversity of
experiences that affect interpretation of an object because
staff members want to avoid foisting their own interpretations
on the public. Many interpretive materials now describe
the outside factors that shape the meaning of objects
and topics on display.
In addition to exhibits, museums also provide related
public programs that are targeted to particular communities.
Some programs focus on singles, such as the High
Museum’s Young Professionals, which is geared toward
people under the age of 40. Other programs focus on
underprivileged youth, such as an after-school program
sponsored by the Computer Museum.
Although some exhibits and activities are intended to
draw targeted audiences, exhibit designers know that the
museum is a public place and the entire public must feel
welcome in each exhibit. So ultimately, these designers
lack a clearly defined audience. In fact, at a meeting of
exhibit designers at the 2000 American Association of Museums
Annual Meeting, one designer asked, “Did anyone
target an age group?”
Still, efforts to broaden the appeal of museums have
changed public attitudes toward them over time; they’re
places people increasingly choose to go. In the U.S., for
example, more people visit museums in a given year than
attend professional sports events (Ivey 2000).
Lessons for Web design
Like museum exhibit designers, designers of Web sites
need to appeal to a variety of demographic groups. As
businesses increasingly market globally, the literature on
technical communication provides substantial guidance in
addressing geographically distinct markets for whom information
will be translated and localized (Hoft 1995).
The community of Web site designers and technical
communicators pays less attention to other aspects of cultural
difference. For example, little has been written about
the impact of occupational culture and socioeconomic
class on technical documents. More significantly, because
many believe that technical communication is objective
(that is, free from bias), technical communicators are rarely
encouraged to identify their own cultural biases and explore
how they might affect the communication products
that they develop.
2. “KEEP THE COLLECTION FROM
KLUMMETTING YOUR GUESTS.”
What I observed in museums
The industrial history museum that I studied does not have
enough exhibit space to physically display the tens of
thousands of hand tools in its collection, much less the
other artifacts, like machinery and manufactured goods. At
the time of the study, the museum did not have enough
storage space on the premises to store objects it could not
display. The staff stored them in a rented storage space
several miles from the museum. The idea implementer
Other exhibits are designed to
appeal to targeted constituencies,
ones whom museums typically
ignored in the past.
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68 TechnicalCOMMUNICATION ² Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001
explained that museums typically display only 10 percent
of their collections at a given time.
Objects form the centerpiece of most museum exhibits.
Because of that, and because the primary purpose of museums
is educational, museum professionals often refer to
their work as object-based learning. One of the most significant
choices a museum exhibit design team makes,
therefore, is what to display. Choices are purposeful. As
exhibit designers learned when they would cram entire
collections into a series of glass cases, which visitors would
ignore, “You have to keep the collection from klummeting
[overwhelming] your guests.” But in choosing which objects
are displayed, exhibit design teams also choose which
objects remain in storage.
This choice is made in the early stages of design.
Because museum exhibits effectively involve a major renovation
of a building and therefore require budgets that
exceed the costs of most homes, they are funded in two
phases. The first is the less expensive planning phase,
which is similar to the needs analysis and requirements
phase of a technical communication project. If funders
have concerns about the plans, those concerns can be
resolved before spending large sums of money needed to
actually build the exhibit.
In the planning phase, the idea generator works with a
team of content experts and educational specialists to devise
a focus for a proposed exhibit. Then the idea generator
and idea implementer work together to develop the detailed
plans for the exhibit, called the storyline. The storyline
is:
a written document that presents the key elements of the
visitor experience. The storyline refines the subject of the
exhibition, identifies key topics to be addressed in the
exhibition, and discusses possibilities for presentation,
including how content in the exhibition might flow and
be presented, and the types of objects to be included.
Members of the staff who are going to work on the
exhibit design team are identified at this time, although
only the idea generator and [idea implementer] take the
most active roles during this phase. The staff often reviews
the museum collection at this point to determine
what objects it already has and the objects it might need
to collect to effectively realize the exhibition. (Carliner
1998, p. 84)
In other words, only after the content is chosen do exhibit
design teams choose objects. In some cases, several objects
might meet the needs of the content, so design teams
choose objects based on their anticipated appeal to visitors
and condition. In some cases, because funds for conserving
objects are more plentiful when associated with an exhibit,
the design team might choose an object that needs conservation.
In other cases, the design team might purposely
choose a touch object—that is, one that visitors will be
encouraged to handle. Touch objects must be physically
durable.
Some museums have addressed the problem of large
collections on an institutional level. Those museums that
have comprehensive collections in each topic area addressed
by their missions need buildings of immense physical
size merely to display and house these collections.
Within a given topic area, some collections are sufficiently
large that they could comprise museums themselves.
Museums have tried many approaches to shield visitors
from this enormity. Some have spawned other museums.
For example, the Washington, DC-based Smithsonian Institution
has several museums, each focusing on a particular
subject area. The London-based Tate Gallery opened a
satellite museum to display its modern art collection. The
New York-based Guggenheim Museum opened one of its
satellites on another continent, in Bilbao, Spain.
Although museums usually have more objects than
they can display, many still find themselves short of objects
when planning new exhibits. For example, each of the
museums that I studied lacked objects in their collections
needed for the exhibits studied. In two of the exhibits, new
acquisitions represented over 50 percent of the objects
ultimately displayed. In each exhibit, too, designers used
fabricated objects (that is, built for the exhibit rather than
true historical artifacts). Some objects were fabricated because
the designers wanted visitors to be able to touch
them, and real objects would fall apart under such wear.
Other objects were fabricated because real ones did not
exist.
On the other hand, entire museums have opened with
signature buildings and without extensive collections to
support them. Building collections is proving difficult for
these museums. For example, the core collections for many
natural history museums opened at the beginning of the
20th century are specimens of large animals collected on
hunts in wilderness areas. Killing endangered species of
animals for display in museums is no longer an acceptable
practice. Similarly, as prices for art skyrocketed in the 1980s
and 1990s, many art museums that have seemingly large
In the planning phase, the idea
generator works with a team of
content experts and educational
specialists to devise a focus for a
proposed exhibit.
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Carliner Lessons Learned from Museum Exhibit Design
Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 ² TechnicalCOMMUNICATION 69
acquisitions budgets still do not have enough money to
purchase pieces for their collections.
Lessons for Web design
As museums have learned to focus exhibits and limit the
amount of information to which they expose visitors, so
designers of Web sites must learn to focus their content and
limit the amount of information to which they expose
users.
With easily available computer storage and increasingly
sophisticated search mechanisms, communicators
have little technical incentive to limit information. Furthermore,
with the promise of ready access to all the knowledge
in the world through the World Wide Web, some
communicators understandably feel an ethical commitment
to provide full access to information that the user has a
need to know. That technical communicators have always
been committed to completeness only strengthens this
commitment.
But our values and technology conflict with users’
needs and experiences. Consider the following:
r According to studies by User Interface Engineering,
using a search mechanism leads users to information
of interest less frequently than links (1997). That fact
places an ongoing premium on the ability to carefully
structure and chunk information for users.
r The growth of profiling software and intelligent
agents provides communicators with both the incentive
and tools to tailor each online experience as
much as possible to the unique needs of a user. The
effectiveness of the rules that operate this software
directly emerges from communicators’ ability to
identify users’ bottom line goals and scenarios of
use, as well as to develop lists of relevant characteristics
that affect a profile.
Technology, alone, then does not solve the problem of
“klummeting users” with information; only design practice
does. For example, one tool in controlling information is
behavioral objectives (also called learning objectives). Objectives
state what users should be able to do after completing
a tutorial. Instructional designers develop objectives
before starting work on a tutorial and use them to
focus their work. They include only content that directly
supports the objectives. Other content is discarded or, if it
must be incorporated, changes the scope for the project
(Mager 1997).
3. “AN EXHIBIT IS NOT A BOOK ON A WALL.”
What I observed in museums
When the design was driven by subject-matter experts
called curators, the heart of most exhibits was a series of
cases crammed with artifacts (such as paintings, furniture,
textiles, photographs, and documents) and accompanied
by detailed documentation on each object (usually typewritten).
This dense documentation was primarily prepared
by one scholar for use by other scholars.
This reference-like approach to displaying objects created
a barrier between museums and the public. The public
was overwhelmed by the quantity of objects and the technical
language and detail of the documentation. In fact,
studies indicated that few visitors actually read labels, and,
of those who did, most spent less than half a minute doing
so. When museums started broadening their audiences two
decades ago, they realized that
[the] museums of the past [would have to] be set aside,
reconstructed, and transformed from a cemetery of brica-
brac into a nursery of living thoughts. (La Follette
1983, p. 41)
In response, exhibit designers transformed their approach
to design, using four concepts to guide them in their efforts.
Guiding Design Concept A: Immersion The first guiding
concept is immersion. According to the idea generator
at the urban history museum I studied, a museum exhibition
should immerse visitors in its story. She noted that a
nearby zoo uses this immersion theory of exhibit design.
The zoo’s designers “put people where the animals are and
let [visitors] become a part of the experiment.” She applies
these beliefs and theories to all the exhibits at her museum.
“It’s theater,” she noted, “yet the objects are real, just as
animals are real [in the zoo].” In her exhibit, visitors are
immersed in the city at four periods in time: an open field
from the time preceding settlement, a city street from the
late 19th century, another city street from the early 20th
century, and a highway scene from the late 20th century.
The designers of the two other exhibits studied also used
immersion.
Guiding Design Concept B: Themes The second
guiding concept is dividing complex topics into a limited
number of key themes. A designer participating in the
exhibit brainstorming session at the 2000 American Association
of Museums Annual Meeting called this “modularity.”
Because topics for exhibitions are often broad
and the number of facts presented is more than a visitor
can process in the short time of a typical visit, designers
try to identify a limited number of broad points on which
to focus, and build exhibits around them. Each of the
exhibits that I studied had fewer than five themes. By
limiting the number of themes, designers hope to increase
the likelihood that visitors will better recall the
insights from exhibits.
For example, designers focused on four key themes in
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70 TechnicalCOMMUNICATION ² Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001
the development of the city featured in the exhibit studied
at the urban history museum rather present a timeline of
development. These four themes corresponded to four
distinct phases of the city’s development, and the design
team built four galleries, each immersing visitors in a phase
of the city’s development.
Guiding Concept C: Layering The third guiding concept
is that of layering content. The idea generator at the
urban history museum explained it best. She insisted that
an exhibit is not “a book on a wall.” In other words, visitors
should not have to read all the labels to learn about the
topic of the exhibit. Instead, they should be able to explore
in as much detail as they like and leave feeling as if they
learned a complete topic.
She designed her exhibit so that labels—text signs on
the wall that provide explanatory information—are presented
in three levels of depth. Visitors can look at the label
and identify its tier, and read all the labels in a chosen tier
see a complete story. These tiers included:
1. Introduction to the gallery. These labels provide
the title of the gallery and an orienting quote. The orienting
quotes originated during the time period depicted in
the gallery. These labels are the largest, so visitors can
easily identify them several feet away.
2. Theme labels. These labels introduce key themes
in the exhibit. The labels consist of a heading, a limited
amount of text (no more than 12 lines) and, occasionally,
a drawing or reproduced photograph. The text on these
labels is large enough to be seen a few feet away.
3. Object labels. These labels, the most numerous in
the exhibition, describe characteristics of individual objects,
such as their significance or the materials used to
make them. Not every object has a label. The text on
these labels is the longest, but rarely longer than 12 lines.
The type on the labels is small; visitors must stand close
to read it. Some of the object labels also have pictures to
further amplify points.
Guiding Concept D: Skimmability The fourth guiding
concept is skimmability. Because visitors come from all
ages and educational and professional backgrounds, designers
cannot assume they know the technical language
associated with the subject matter of the exhibit. In addition,
because visitors are usually standing on their feet
when they read the labels, reading labels can quickly become
an uncomfortable experience. Finally, most visitors
usually have a limited amount of time, either because they
have other activities scheduled, want to leave time to see
other parts of the museum, or are visiting with an impatient
friend or relative. Therefore, designers must write the labels
to be skimmed while standing, rather than studied
while sitting.
Lessons for Web design
Just as the designers of early television quickly realized that
a television show was not a radio show with pictures, so
designers of Web sites are learning that readers do not
prefer to read long passages of text on a computer screen,
electronically distributed books not withstanding (Marsh
1997). In fact, some studies show that users do not read
online; they skim. Users don’t skim everything, merely the
first few lines on a screen. In those instances where they do
read word-for-word, users typically read more slowly online
than they do in a book (Horton 1995).
As objects distinguish museum exhibits from books,
and pictures distinguish television from radio, so the ability
to interact and the ability to integrate several media distinguish
computers from books and other types of media.
Many of the design techniques used to control the flow of
data in a museum exhibit may also work online:
r As exhibit designers use immersion to recreate environments
for visitors, so Web site designers can use
simulation to recreate environments for users.
r As exhibit designers layer content so visitors can
choose a desired level of complexity, so interface
designers can create layered interfaces to match users’
experience levels and layered help systems to
match users’ appetite for information (Wilson 1994).
r As exhibit designers design skimmable exhibits, so
Web site designers present content in a scannable
mode, using such devices as navigational tools,
headings, lists, charts, and graphics to promote scanning
(Carliner 2000).
4. “EVEN THE BEST SIGNAGE CAN9T
FIX A POORLY DESIGNED MUSEUM.”
What I observed in museums
The designer of the exhibit on computer and telecommunications
networks at the high technology museum I studied
commented that visitors should have the “realization
that what [they]’re experiencing is unique, powerful, and
challenging.” A good exhibition “keeps [visitors] coming
around the corner” and “makes [them] want to explore.”
Because the physical location of objects within an
exhibit has a significant impact on visitors’ experiences,
exhibit designers try to consciously use space.
Conscious use starts with the general layout of the
exhibit. Some designers like to create a hub of activity, such
as the designer of the exhibit on networks:
I wanted a big circle in the center, as if the exhibit
radiated from a hub. I like to start with a larger metaphor.
. . . Even if people don’t realize it, the exhibit has
strength of that organization. It makes everything flow
naturally, according to a plan. Otherwise, it’s just a
space layout. . . . Whether people understand or not,
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Carliner Lessons Learned from Museum Exhibit Design
Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001 ² TechnicalCOMMUNICATION 71
they know something’s there for a reason. . . . [Visitors]
should always see the hub. That’s how it is on the
network.
The concept evolved from my work in retail. The [bookstores
I designed] have a book layout, with “pages” on
either side [of a central aisle]. Nobody thinks about it but
it’s an organization method that, at the least, makes
sense.
Others prefer a layout that lets visitors enter from any
point. That’s what the idea generator at the urban history
museum I studied prefers. Rather than following a timeline,
she wanted to make it possible for visitors to enter the
exhibit at any point in time and coherently follow the story
forward or backward from that point.
Sometimes a controlled approach is necessary. Because
sequence is integral to telling the story of the canning
factory, designers planned for it to be followed in a specific
sequence, with definite starting, middle, and ending points.
Some museums use the sequential approach as a means of
controlling crowds. For example, the temporary galleries in
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Minneapolis Institute
of Arts are intended to be followed in sequence because it
is the only way to manage the large crowds in blockbuster
exhibits and because these exhibits are separately ticketed,
requiring a single entrance.
Floors and walls also become design elements. For
example, the designers at the urban history museum in my
study used flooring that would simulate a sidewalk in one
gallery and a highway in another. The designer of the
exhibit on networks that I studied chose a mesh wall
covering to enhance the high tech mood and image of the
exhibit.
Raising or lowering the level of light in a gallery also
helps create the mood of an exhibit. For example, lighting
in the galleries of street scenes in the urban history museum
I studied have a high lighting level to simulate daylight.
Sometimes lighting levels are dictated by practical
considerations. Because fragile textiles, books, sketches,
and paintings fade in bright light, exhibit design teams
must often lower light levels to preserve the objects.
Idea generators and idea implementers also become involved
in the design of floor space. They choose signature
objects to catch visitors’ attention and beckon them forward in
an exhibit. Placed in one section of an exhibit, signature
objects are large objects that can be seen from another part of
the exhibit. For example, a fire engine in the urban history
museum in my study and an Egyptian temple (complete, and
inside the gallery) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art are
examples of signature objects. Similarly, museum educators
become involved in the design of floor space. The educator at
the urban history museum noted that she always has to remind
the design team to leave a “gathering space” in exhibits
so she has a place where she can speak to a group of 20 to 40
students at a time.
Laws in some jurisdictions require that exhibits be accessible
to all visitors, regardless of their physical disabilities. For
example, to accommodate visitors in wheel chairs, exhibit
designers typically add ramps to exhibits that have sunken or
raised areas, ensure that visitors in wheelchairs have sufficient
clearance between objects, and make sure that they can read
labels from their sitting positions. Although not required by
law, many exhibit designers also include seating areas in
exhibits because older adults and young children need a
place to rest in the middle of an exhibit. The design team at
the urban history museum I studied also tested its exhibit with
people in wheelchairs to make sure that the accommodations
met the needs of these visitors.
Fixed architectural elements also affect the design of the
floor space. For example, one of the obstacles facing the
design team at the high technology museum in my study was
a stairwell in the middle of the exhibit (the stairs were not part
of the exhibit). It could not be moved, so designers had to
figure a way of incorporating it into the exhibit.
In addition to considering the floor space of the exhibit,
designers also consider traffic patterns in the museum
building. Some staffs place popular temporary exhibits at
the end of a hallway, subtly requiring that visitors walk by
permanent exhibits they might otherwise miss. Architect
Richard Meier designed the High Museum of Art in Atlanta
so that visitors could see nearly all the exhibits from the
atrium at the entrance. Based on this initial scan, visitors
can decide where to begin exploring.
Despite research into the traffic patterns of visitors in
museums, not all museum buildings are easily traversed.
Some museums try to compensate for a non-intuitive floor
plan with extra signage. But as one exhibit designer noted
in the brainstorming session of museum exhibit designers,
“even the best signage can’t fix a poorly designed museum.”
Another commented that wayfinding within a museum
has “little to with signs and maps. [It] has to do with
the layout of the building.”
Lessons for Web design
As museum exhibit designers have learned that physical
space is a key communication resource, so Web site de-
In addition to considering the floor
space of the exhibit, designers also
consider traffic patterns in the
museum building.
APPLIED RESEARCH
Lessons Learned from Museum Exhibit Design Carliner
72 TechnicalCOMMUNICATION ² Volume 48, Number 1, February 2001
signers have learned that screen real estate is a key communication
resource. Consider:
r Because of the consistency of the Windows and
Macintosh interfaces, users expect to find certain
types of information at certain locations on the
screen, like the menus and button bars.
r Similarly, because of the patterns of eye movement,
users are more likely to see information placed in
certain areas of the screen than in others (Horton
1995).
r Because many users typically do not scroll down,
communicators have learned that they need to include
mechanisms for encouraging users to scroll
down and move forward to related pages (User Interface
Engineering 1998).
r As exhibit designers have learned that the physical
layout of a building constrains their ability to help
visitors effectively find their way through the museum,
so interface designers have learned that the
structure of the underlying code constrains their ability
to effectively design an interface. For example, a
poorly structured program often results in a confusing
menu. One software developer commented, “I
can usually look at an interface and tell you the underlying
structure of the data.”
Based on these observations and experiences, Web
designers might do the following:
r Consciously place information on the screen, making
sure that key information appears in places where
users are most likely to see it. Commercial sites have
already learned to place advertisements at the top of
a page and along the right margin to increase attention
to them. We haven’t developed similar conventions
for technical information. Perhaps we could
follow the example of cnn.com on its long stories,
and place a table of contents at the beginning of the
page. Or perhaps we can place summaries of key
points along the right margin.
r Create “signature objects.” The most likely signature
object for a Web site is exclusive content. The challenge
is most acute on commercial Web sites
(whether business-to-consumer or business-to-business),
because so many Web sites license content
from third parties who, in turn, license the same
content to other parties. Consider news. Many
sources suggest that that a news feed brings visitors
back to a site. But if the news feed to one site
comes from the same source feeding a competitive
Web site, that news is not a signature object. As museums
have learned, a copy of the “Mona Lisa” does
not have the same signature value as the original.
r Design for accessibility by people with disabilities.
The technical term for this type of design is universal
design because it is a strategy to provide access
to all. Many designers assume that adaptive equipment
and specialized software can handle many of
the challenges faced by persons with disabilities. For
example, large screens and specialized software can
increase the size of a display for people with visual
impairments. But such hardware and software do
not solve the problem of an inconsiderate design.
For example, consider the problems encountered by
a user of a Web site that relies heavily on audio
cues, and does not provide alternate presentations of
that data, such as transcriptions.
r Consider traffic patterns. On the one hand, designers
want to make sure that visitors notice the most important
or sought-after information on the Web site.
However, as museum designers place less-known
exhibits in the path of the sought-after ones to give
those less-known parts more exposure, so Web site
designers might place less-known content ahead of
the better known material as a means of introducing
visitors to other parts.
5. “MUSEUM EXHIBITS MUST CAPTURE
THE VISITOR’S CURIOSITY.”
What I observed in museums
The idea generators at each museum studied all agreed: at
the heart of a good museum exhibit is a good story. Like
stories in books or film,
museum exhibits must capture the visitor’s curiosity. . . .
Our attention is attracted by novel or unexplained stimuli—
a loud noise, a sudden bustling activity, a strange
animal, or a mysterious object. It is by appealing to this
universal propensity that museums can attract the psychic
energy of a visitor long enough so that a more
extensive interaction, perhaps leaning to learning, can
later take place. (Csikzentmihalyi and Hermanson
1995, pp. 36–37)
The recipe for successful storytelling in exhibits is the same
as that in literature: riveting plots and engaging characters.
To create riveting plots, museum exhibit designers
employ a number of standard storytelling techniques. One
of the most basic is making sure the exhibit has a distinct