Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience
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Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience

Tiina Roppola

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eBook - ePub

Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience

Tiina Roppola

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About This Book

Exhibition environments are enticingly complex spaces: as facilitators of experience; as free-choice learning contexts; as theaters of drama; as encyclopedic warehouses of cultural and natural heritage; as two-, three- and four-dimensional storytellers; as sites for self-actualizing leisure activity. But how much do we really know about the moment-by-moment transactions that comprise the intricate experiences of visitors? To strengthen the disciplinary knowledge base supporting exhibition design, we must understand more about what 'goes on' as people engage with the multifaceted communication environments that are contemporary exhibition spaces.

The in-depth, visitor-centered research underlying this book offers nuanced understandings of the interface between visitors and exhibition environments. Analysis of visitors' meaning-making accounts shows that the visitor experience is contingent upon four processes: framing, resonating, channeling, and broadening. These processes are distinct, yet mutually influencing. Together they offer an evidence-based conceptual framework for understanding visitors in exhibition spaces. Museum educators, designers, interpreters, curators, researchers, and evaluators will find this framework of value in both daily practice and future planning. Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience provides museum professionals and academics with a fresh vocabulary for understanding what goes on as visitors wander around exhibitions.

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Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2013
ISBN
9781135090593
Topic
Art
Edition
1

1Envisaging the Discipline

[W]e are just beginning to appreciate some of the central semiological and psychological mechanisms upon which the objects of museological stagecraft and museographical . . . discourse are dependent.
Donald Preziosi (2006, 55)
Exiting the hotel, I gather my bearings and head left down the street. Two blocks down, next street right, keep on going until the city gardens. The concierge said that the diagonal footpath cutting through the park was the most direct and scenic route. Sure enough, the path channels me reassuringly along. A pleasant walk in crisp morning air, manicured shrubbery, a sequence of ponds with resident ducks. Urban sculptural pieces punctuate the grass. And then it presents itself, just over the rise. A park bench offers pause and vista. I take a moment. My eyes are struck by soaring glass features, by the organically curved (almost bulbous) cement-rendered walls. Textured metal panes glint in the early light. I take a breath and enjoy an impulse of energy. The juxtaposition of form and finishes makes a statement in the landscape. A statement of what? A statement of creativity, of decentring tradition? Yes, I think. With that I get back on my feet and meander down to see what this jaunt will bring. I carry the feeling that it is going to be a good day, one of those precious days where I am broadened by vignettes of the world beyond my everyday experience.
A polite face greets me, hand outstretched with a glossy trifold brochure. The subtitle draws my attention: Where ideas emerge/converge/mutate. Oh, okay. I am framed to expect some boundary pushing ahead. I traverse the airy foyer, as directed by the gesturing guide, and enter into the blackness of a sound- and light-controlled chamber. A melange of still and moving images, audio snippets of streetwise philosophy. A bass-heavy drumbeat takes hold of my chest, until it strangely morphs into a classical string ensemble. The images, speech and music prompt my mind into a speculative state. What is this pastiche trying to tell me? The installation skates on the edge of cinematic production and sampling culture gone wild. Gosh! An exaggerated and stylised gestalt. I am roused, recalibrating. I am reframed to engage with this unmuseum of museums.
Stepping out of the chamber, I find myself in a large circular space, shiny wooden floors topped with an enormous pyramid-shaped skylight. Light, light, soaring light! Blue sky day. Nice. Like the spokes of a wheel, five pathways lead off from the circular hub. My attention is channelled towards the artefact adorning the head of each pathway, and then to their backdrops: black and white photographs, larger than life yet subtly pale, suggesting a context for each object. Each threshold beckons, come, come this way, revealing a glimpse of the content to follow. Hmmm, which way should I go? Other visitors milled about, bodies shuffling and eyes flitting, those with companions swapping a word or two. Three paths particularly intrigue me, and on impulse I make a start through the least crowded of these.
A series of one-off words and short phrases—affixed here and there to walls and showcase glass—serve as points of focus as I explore the space. Suits me. I’m not always one to read the fine print, although I am drawn to study a couple of exhibits more closely, the ones that particularly resonate, for one reason or another. I notice the artful arrangement of objects and images. They begin to suggest a story, a story I build around the featured words, words scattered around the place like exclamation marks. The narrow passage comes to an end. Turning the corner, the space opens out. I am met with an entire scene, elaborate and densely detailed. A reconstruction of some other time, some other place. Reclining lounge chairs sit at the centre, encompassed by the semicircular scene. I indulge. Aah, so nice to stop for a moment and rest my legs, after two days of traipsing around a new city. Others take up the opportunity; the seats fill quickly.
As I begin to wonder what’s in store, the lights dim and a film projection starts to play on the ceiling. I can see that the scene physically surrounding me replicates the real-life scene in the film. Clever. I wasn’t expecting that. Hang on, is it actually ‘real life’? I couldn’t be sure. The film becomes peopled, day-to-day activities begin, events unfold. Now and again, an unseen narrator overlays the footage with comments and questions. The deep and measured voice comes in a downwards direction towards me, as though from on high. I figure the loudspeakers are positioned in the ceiling somewhere. I wonder if it was the intention to subconsciously suggest a voice of authority. I silently chuckle. A bit too cheesy for me.
Suddenly an artefact is spotlit in the reconstruction in front of me. I’m not sure what it is. The object returns to darkness, and the same object is now being used by people in the film. So that’s what it is. The narration tells me that all isn’t quite as it seems on the surface. Layers of meaning around some otherwise simple objects, reflecting rival interpretations about a historical event. Ah! I didn’t know that. Interesting. My mind ticks over. These more subtle shades of meaning redeem the narration, I find myself thinking. The film finishes. I remain sitting in my reverie, head resting against the recliner. But only for a short while, as the houselights gradually reach full brightness. I reluctantly take this as a cue to give someone else my comfortable seat. I remind myself of that five-way intersection. How could I get back there, without having to backtrack?
Something tugs at my consciousness. I’m not sure what, really. I continue wandering and wondering. I guess a lot of things have been presented before me, in bits and pieces. Like unfinished sentences, where you are given the first few words and have to complete the sentence. I haven’t perceived a careful logic. It’s been quite scrambled. But then again, some things have been quite strongly suggested. Where ideas emerge/converge/mutate. Have ideas converged here? Probably. Who or what is doing the mutating? And what does this mean, exactly? Is it a good thing? Who will benefit? I haven’t come across many ‘answers’ here. The whole place has definitely raised more questions than answers. Oh! Okay, I get it. There is more work to be done. More thinking work to be done, by me. I sense a broadening of my awareness, even if in an unresolved way.
Now, where was that cafĂ©? I’m sure it was around here somewhere. I could so do with a coffee. I reach for my brochure.
The core of this book—Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience—is written from inside the visitor experience. The above sketch, while imaginary, is an amalgam of concepts from the experiential accounts of nearly 300 visitors to six different institutions: two museums of natural and cultural history, two science and technology centres, a war museum/memorial and an immigration-themed museum. What I found was happening, right across these visitor accounts, was that visitors were in relationship with exhibition environments through four key relational processes. I have named these processes framing, resonating, channelling and broadening.
Framing. What makes a museum a museum and not a library or a theme park? Although I didn’t inquire as such, visitors spontaneously qualified what they told me about their experiences by raising generic characteristics of ‘museum’ and ‘exhibit’. These higher-level conceptions form frames through which visitors read the exhibition environment: what they expect of it, how they participate in it and whether they feel satisfied by it.
Visitors work out the relative boundaries of their frames through lifelong experiences with all kinds of institutions and communication technologies. What do exhibits ideally offer in a world already saturated with the Internet, television, books, cinema? Museums also actively project frames, embodied in slogans such as ‘Come and See the Real Thing!’. This is a ‘displayer-of-artefacts’ frame. Frames are not static. Reframing processes can be set into motion, especially as museums undergo redevelopment or when new institutions open their doors. It can be invigorating, or problematic, when a visitor does not encounter what they were expecting. Understanding visitor responses when frames are challenged or stretched provides insight into the management of institutional change.
As frames demarcate museums and exhibits as particular kinds of communication media, frames can be understood to semiotically mediate the visitor experience. That is, museums and exhibits are themselves artefacts of culture that have been socially and materially engineered to (re)construct meaning in certain ways. As relations between the social and material shift across time, so too do conventions of ‘museum’ and ‘exhibit’, along with the public’s expectations. Understanding such nuances—the nuances of semiotic mediation—can assist institutions to successfully frame and reframe themselves through time. Chapter 5 of this book presents framing.
Framing processes enable visitors to make sense of their experiences in fundamental ways. They are an essential backdrop to a range of other processes that ensue as people make their way through museums.
Resonating. Visitors are under no obligation to engage with free-choice exhibition environments, and yet they do. Visitors’ experiential accounts reveal seemingly effortless and instinctive ways that visitors are drawn to exhibition environments. Such processes of resonance are complementary matches between visitors and exhibition spaces, resulting in increased energy and meaning. Overwhelmingly, these positive matches are achieved through the body and brain working together as an inseparable ensemble. Resonance with ambient qualities such as light, colour and space amplifies visitors’ energy. Positive body states then lead to positive mind states. Significantly, resonance with the physical design of exhibits can draw visitors to content they might not otherwise pursue.
Perceptual resonance is another complementary matching process. The stylised, sensory fragments of exhibition environments resonate as greater perceptual wholes in the bodies and minds of visitors. This process relies on the everyday phenomenon of perceptual completion. As we go about our lives, we unconsciously ‘fill in’ missing perceptual details and dynamically integrate information from multiple sensory sources. We do this to experience coherent perceptual worlds—in other words, to experience meaning. Perceptual resonance is a vital process in museums, as exhibitions can only ever be stylised representations. The fragments presented by exhibits are routinely ‘filled in’ by larger constructs in visitors’ minds.
Resonance is also experienced as a sense of coalescence, a uniting with the exhibition environment. Coalescence can be physical, personal and/or social in nature. Visitors may experience this special affinity through feeling part of an exhibition in a bodily sense, through feeling emotionally moved by an exhibit or through feeling socially engaged with it. Importantly, resonant processes demonstrate a webbed relationship with higher functions of mind. Understanding the body and brain as an ensemble is essential to understanding the visitor experience. What museums and exhibits offer, at their very essence, is an embodied experience. Chapter 6 presents resonating.
Resonant processes are characteristically effortless, even energising, in nature. Material resources constitute museums’ unique richness, enabling striking body-brain connections. Yet in navigating this wealth of resources, there are also burdens placed on visitors.
Channelling. Museums are complex and novel, and visitors tend towards fatigue and overload, as well as operate within limited time frames. Exhibitions communicate through arrangements of ‘stuff’ in space, and museums must be moved through to be experienced. The construct of channelling accounts for how visitors are in relationship with exhibition environments as a choreography through time and space, under these conditions. Both visitors and exhibition spaces exercise agency in channelling processes: institutions can assist visitors in forming channels, and visitors must also work to forge channels—physically, perceptually and conceptually.
Spatial channels influence not only physical pathways but also how visitors pay attention. The interior architecture of exhibitions can direct visitors’ focus, can entice visitors through an unfolding sense of mystery and can be interpreted symbolically. The many types of media used in exhibition spaces need to be orchestrated in careful ways, lest they result in a cacophony of confusing, fragmented channels. With overload by clutter a typical challenge, offering selective channels through unfussy design can be effective. Alternatively, the sensitive and synchronous coordination of multiple media can help visitors find focus through complex content. Story, or narrative, is the vehicle of choice for channelling the content of the museum, with its absence disconcerting to visitors.
Channelling processes assist visitors to find a sense of purposeful directedness and cohesion as they simultaneously negotiate the space, media and content of exhibitions. Channelling is essentially about focusing semiosis, about finding one’s way through, comprehending and synthesising a complex array of architectural and representational elements. Chapter 7 of this book presents channelling.
Framing, resonating and channelling are sensemaking processes that occur on multiple planes as people engage with exhibition spaces. What, then, of the meanings visitors make of the substantive content of museums?
Broadening. Exhibits and exhibitions—assemblages of objects, text, media and space—are orchestrated with some purpose in mind. They are communication devices intended to provoke thought and/or emotion, to persuade or inform or to otherwise have meaningful impact. Visitor accounts illustrated broadening processes that are experiential, conceptual, affective and/or discursive in nature. Broadening often occurs as a combination of these qualities and indeed gains potency when they are interfused.
Learning in the museum is alluring for the dialectical spaces within which visitors work. As others have described it, visitors work in spaces between the concrete and metaphoric, between heart and mind, between the poetics and politics of display. Broadening also speaks to how visitors work in these dialectical spaces. Whether consciously or unconsciously, exhibitions materially express a discursive stance. That is, they express ‘reality’ from a particular perspective and have particular interests at their core. Visitors therefore make meaning in dialectical spaces between the physical and discursive. Hands-on science centre exhibits promote a discourse of science as active and fun. Exhibitions showcasing cultural artefacts promote the discourse that the most important cultural stories are told through material objects. Even exhibits inspired by postmodern bricolage deconstructing multiple ‘realities’ promote the discourse that there is no single ‘reality’.
Broadening processes can be encouraged or hindered by the way in which exhibits set up a dialectic between their material construction and their particular discursive content. Are visitors supported to be self-aware coparticipants in the creation of meaning, or does the exhibit restrict visitors’ performance of meaning? Chapter 8 presents broadening.
This book will show that framing, resonating, channelling and broadening are as much about visitors as they are about exhibition environments. They are processes at the interface of visitors and exhibitions, processes on which the museum experience is contingent. Framing, resonating, channelling and broadening are how visitors and exhibition environments forge relations, over multiple levels. Together they form an evidence-based conceptual framework that dynamically maps the transactional space between visitors and exhibitions. This framework deeply enters the visitor experience: an enigmatic task of exhibition designers, interpreters, curators, educators, evaluators, audience advocates and museum scholars alike. My particular interest in understanding the visitor experience is the platform it provides for designing for the museum visitor experience.
WHY RESEARCH AND WRITE THIS BOOK?
Exhibition environments are enticingly complex spaces: as facilitators of experience; as free-choice learning contexts; as theatres of drama; as encyclopaedic warehouses of cultural and natural heritage; as two-, three- and four-dimensional storytellers and as sites for an engaging day out. A key task for exhibition designers is to sensitively orchestrate interpretive content and interpretive media, in relationship with the overall vessel of the institution’s building, so that visitors are supported in meaningful and accessible ways.
Designers indeed achieve outstanding outcomes in many of the world’s museums, through application of design sensibilities, creative intuition and problem solving, sound judgement and on-the-job experience. However, as a designer turned towards the museum field, I was struck by the limited disciplinary knowledge undergirding exhibition design. More established design fields, such as architecture and industrial design, are built on solid disciplinary foundations through which university-trained designers may confidently base entry into their respective professions. In contrast, many exhibition designers enter the field sideways from other professions, with the knowledge of other professions only partially addressing the complex needs of exhibition design (Skolnick, Marwit and Secor 2010). Only a ‘handful’ of design schools offer exhibition design as a subject, and full exhibition design courses are ‘rare’ (ibid., 1804). Exhibition design remains one of the last museum disciplines ‘for which no specific professional training is required or even available’, which is problematic as learning on the job can mean that exhibition designers remain restricted to the ‘philosophy and limitations of their own institution’ (Bedno 1991, 53, 54).
Indeed, I myself crossed disciplinary thresholds, from industrial design to the field of museums. As a professional in the design and manufacturing sector, my work concerned me with lawnmowers and office furniture and electrical fittings (and coffins!). I became a designer so that I could conceptualise and produce products that would be of value in the sphere for which they were made. How would the products I was creating interface with real people not only physically and ergonomically, but also physiologically, psychologically, intellectually, emotionally and socially? What difference would they make in people’s lives? Unfortunately, the economic drivers of the mass manufacturing industry worked against my personal yearning to focus on the more human elements of design. My daily work became more about engineering details and reducing the cost pe...

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