Museum peeps, what's your least favorite conversation to have with people outside the field? For me, it's screens and buttons. "I hate how new exhibits are full of screens and buttons" or "you should add more screens and buttons for the kids." Both takes are missing the point! A thread. 🧵 - ThreadSky

extinctmonsters.bsky.social • 160 days ago

Museum peeps, what's your least favorite conversation to have with people outside the field? For me, it's screens and buttons. "I hate how new exhibits are full of screens and buttons" or "you should add more screens and buttons for the kids." Both takes are missing the point! A thread. 🧵

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extinctmonsters.bsky.social•160 days ago

If a museum is including media and interactives in exhibits just for the sake of doing it, or just because other museums have them, they're doing it wrong.

Both these things are part of the toolkit for telling stories in a physical space. Some situations call for them, others don't.

extinctmonsters.bsky.social•160 days ago

Often, the best way to tell a story or communicate a concept is by showing a real thing from the collection. If so, do this! But sometimes we need to say something more complicated than "look at this thing and notice it's features."

extinctmonsters.bsky.social•160 days ago

Video is a great for establishing chronology: first this happened, then this, then this. A mechanical interactive is often the best way to portray an action. The function of interactive touchscreens is hard to sum up because they can do so many things—some useful, some not.

extinctmonsters.bsky.social•160 days ago

Let's look at some examples. These fish jaws in Biomechanics: The Machine Inside are a perfect use case for mechanical interactives. The actions visitors are preforming (making the fish go bite) directly illustrates how different kinds of fish skulls articulate, better than actual specimens could.

extinctmonsters.bsky.social•160 days ago

Conversely, these are lousy interactives. Visitors press a button, then see three models with captions light up in sequence. The models are beautifully made, but the visitor action has nothing to do with what is happening—these are really just fancy text delivery systems.

extinctmonsters.bsky.social•160 days ago

I usually see people press the button, then walk away before realizing anything is happening. Say what you will about attention spans, but that's primarily a problem with the interactive design.

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