Exhibit Interactives Aren’t Websites

A museum touchscreen can borrow from websites. But it can’t act like one.

There are piles of reasons for that.

For example, websites assume a “continuing user.” Museum interactives can’t. One visitor can use a screen for 20 seconds, walk away, and leave the next visitor to pick up halfway through.

In a gallery interactive, there is no onboarding, no help forum, no accounts, and no guarantee that every visitor would understand the latest digital conventions, even if we used them.

And visitors don’t come to our exhibitions to interact with something that feels like an everyday website anyway.

That doesn’t mean rejecting everything the web has taught all of us. Some conventions have become lasting and durable:

Home.
Back.
Play.
Next.
Start Over.

Obvious buttons, visible progress indicators, and clear “selected states” are also useful, because they solve basic interface problems.

The danger comes with all the trendy stuff.

At the moment, hamburger menus, swipe-only navigation, hidden drawers, current-day card systems, and other contemporary UX doodads might make perfect sense. But a permanent exhibition could remain in place for ten or fifteen years. Will that interface still feel cool — or even clear — then?

Here’s the thing:

Design for the gallery, not the browser.

Borrow only the digital conventions that have survived multiple generations of interface design. Avoid all the ones that merely look current.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
UX, or user experience. A term describing how people experience and operate a digital interface, which can include websites, apps, and museum interactives. UX determines how users understand controls, navigate content, and complete tasks successfully.