Interactive screens – State of the art analysis

UPDATED!

Currently Tom Tits don’t use many screens at their exhibits and during my visits there I can’t recall any interactive screens at all only a small number of TV monitors. During the last years they have developed a mobile phone app, something that our visit showed haven’t got the result they wished, we only saw a few persons using it. Maybe they should consider interactive screens.

With screens they can present their information in a more exciting way. They can present it while the visitors are interacting with, and exploring the software of the screens. A good example of successful, or at least interesting, can be seen at an art museum in Cleveland. They have made a solution where you can make the same pose as famous artwork and draw a line and then it find your drawn line in an existing artwork. I think they have an interesting application where they make the visitor interact with the art works.

I think interactive screens can offer a great way to encourage kids and younger persons to visit and enjoy a museum visit and still add an extra dimension to middle-aged persons. Another thing that is an opportunity for customization is the ability to offer customized texts and languages for different visitors.

However the screens can offer an interesting solution for museums they have some problems. First of all screens are at the moment expensive. Especially big ones and when going down in price and size we might not get the wanted result. Another thing I have noticed on the ones I have tried is that they often “steal” attention from the exhibits and actually themselves becomes an enjoyment for the visitors. In my opinion we should try to make the screens to an aid during a visit at a museum. Furthermore the solutions I have had the pleasure to try have not been able to use by many people at the same time, instead it most have been one person – on screen. After a short research I have found that there are screens that have solved this problem through multi-touch and a big sized screen. Finally I would like to point out that even if the target group is big it might be difficult for older people to use the service. I have own experience of trying to teach my grandmother using a touch device and she struggle with touching small “button” and even not touch other things.

At Tom Tits they don’t have any problem with encourage their visitors to interact in the exhibitions. But they might take benefits of it in a more educational way. Today they have some short texts next to the experiments something that isn’t very attractive for kids. Width interactive screens they will be able to present it in a way which makes it more interesting for kids. I think the museum in Cleveland have made something great when they have incorporate body movements into educational purposes. I believe something similar could improve the visitor experience at Tom Tits.