Navigation
and
Visitor
Interactions:
Best
Practices,
Tools,
and
Technologies
ENAS410/ARCH390:
Making
Spaces,
Assignment
4
Sarim
Abbas,
Antonio
Cao,
Julia
Ma,
Evan
Smith
Table
of
Contents
•
Executive
Summary
•
Screens
and
Interactive
Exhibits
•
Virtual
Reality
and
Augmented
Reality
•
Navigation
Technology
•
Accessibility
•
Conclusion
•
Notes
•
Works
Cited
Executive
Summary
While
“interactive
exhibit”
tends
to
conjure
images
of
screens
and
digital
content,
museums
have
long
been
providing
ways
for
visitors
to
engage
with
the
content
behind
the
glass.
This
engagement
is
perhaps
best
characterized
in
the
Discovery
Room
on
the
second
floor
of
the
Peabody,
a
designated
space
to
bring
hands-on
interaction
with
living
animals
and
other
natural
treasures.
“The
Discovery
Room’s
most
important
rule
is
‘Please
Touch!’”
proclaims
its
website,1 and
it
follows
through
on
that
rule.
With
large
numbers
of
children
coming
to
the
museum
daily,
such
a
child-focused
area
sees
heavy
use
and
is
extremely
popular
(over
60,000
visitors
visit
the
space
annually
out
of
150,000
total).
We
set
out
to
explore
ways
in
which
an
expansion
of
the
Discovery
Room’s
philosophy
to
the
wider
Peabody
experience
could
help
increase
engagement
amongst
children,
adults
and
those
with
disabilities.
We
also
wanted
to
explore
novel
tools
and
technologies
that
could
help
visitors
interact
with
exhibits
and
navigate
the
museum
space.
We
took
inspiration
from
the
existing
exhibits
and
interactions
at
the
Peabody,
and
the
innovative
work
being
done
by
other
museums
and
creatives.
What
follows
is
an
assessment
across
four
dimensions:
interactive
screens
and
digital
exhibits,
virtual
and
augmented
reality,
localization
technology,
and
accessibility
considerations.
When
conducting
our
research,
we
tried
to
be
mindful
of
the
Peabody’s
mission
to
be
a
center
for
advancing
science
and
maintaining
good
stewardship
over
its
collections.
As
next
steps,
we
propose
taking
the
pulse
of
the
Peabody
staff
in
the
kinds
of
technologies
that
they
are
interested
in
exploring,
and
then
diving
deep
into
how
those
may
be
used
to
best
complement
the
museum’s
rich
history
and
important
collections.
Screens
and
Interactive
Exhibits
Touchscreens
A
crucial
first
step
in
the
process
of
engaging
visitors
is
bringing
text
and
images
out
from
behind
the
glass
of
an
exhibit
and
into
a
more
interactive
setting.
While
physical
interactions
with
the
specimens
are
possible
in
very
select
cases,
these
interactions
require
the
oversight
of
a
museum
employee
or
volunteer.
The
Peabody
already
has
taken
steps
to
that
effect,
with
touchscreen
kiosks
in
both
the
Great
Hall
and
Human
Origins
exhibit,
but
there
are
clear
points
for
further
growth
and
innovation.
First,
the
underlying
technology
of
touchscreens
has
taken
enormous
strides
in
recent
years.
Personal
experimentation
with
the
screens
currently
installed
quickly
revealed
that
of
the
two
installed
in
the
Human
Origins
exhibit,
one
is
inaccurate
by
almost
four
inches
while
the
other
does
not
register
touch
input
at
all
and
cannot
be
moved
off
of
the
starting
screen.
The
screen
in
the
Great
Hall
has
large
speakers
lining
the
sides
which
play
an
unprompted
audio
introduction
to
every
new
display
of
information.
In
an
often
quiet
and
contemplative
space,
the
sudden
and
unexpected
sound
can
be
jarring
and
off-putting
to
both
users
of
the
system
and
passive
visitors
elsewhere
in
the
Hall.
These
old
implementations
of
touchscreen
kiosks
may
not
have
aged
gracefully,
but
their
information
density
is
an
indispensable
tool
in
a
museum
like
the
Peabody.
Even
with
the
huge
increase
in
exhibit
space,
the
museum
has
vastly
more
artifacts
than
can
ever
be
displayed
in
the
physical
exhibit
halls,
and
many
items
have
much
more
information
to
explore
than
can
fit
on
a
placard.
Touchscreens
help
alleviate
these
issues,
since
one
screen
can
effectively
be
many
multiples
of
its
area
worth
of
information.
Beyond
that,
with
the
right
data
management
system
the
information
can
be
updated
in
an
instant
and
a
library
of
content
can
be
easily
rotated
through
the
museum,
enabling
much
faster
turnover
of
exhibits
without
needing
to
fabricate
new
physical
signage
for
every
iteration.
With
the
need
to
use
such
screens
in
the
space,
a
look
at
current
touchscreen
technology
reveals
how
far
the
products
have
come.
One
of
the
industry
leaders
is
Ideum,2 which
offers
large-scale
touchscreen
tables
(referred
to
as
touch
tables),
and
more
conventional
angled
screens.
Most
of
their
products
feature
integrated
computing,
eliminating
the
need
to
build
space
for
a
concealed
computer
to
route
information
to
the
screens.
They
also
support
usage
by
up
to
eight
users
at
a
time,
reducing
the
wait
time
for
visitors
to
access
the
information.
Contrast
this
with
the
screen
in
the
Great
Hall,
where
the
usage
pattern
generally
consists
of
one
group
at
a
time
using
the
screen
to
page
through
information
without
others
being
able
to
either
use
the
screen
or
even
see
what
is
being
explored.
A
touch
table
breaks
out
of
the
historical
use
of
these
types
of
exhibits
as
desktop-style
browsing
by
one
user.
Instead,
a
dynamic
user
interface
can
allow
information
to
“float”
around
the
screen,
with
different
stages
of
the
information
intermingled.
This
approach
supports
many
users
are
looking
at
the
same
elements
of
the
content
at
once
(for
example,
the
case
of
a
group
all
reading
the
introduction),
or
each
user
exploring
what
interests
them
(each
guest
wants
to
learn
about
the
discovery
of
a
different
specimen).
The
content
can
be
freely
rotated
and
sized
on
the
screen
based
on
the
orientation
of
the
user
and
varying
visual
needs.
While
many
of
Ideum’s
products
are
industry-standard
and
mostly
building
upon
previous
iterations
of
touchscreen
technology,
their
Tangible
Engine
software3 is
a
leader
in
merging
physical
objects
with
capacitive
touchscreens.
By
placing
unique
patterns
of
conductive
material
onto
small
puck-like
bases,
the
program
can
identify
physical
items
when
placed
directly
on
the
touch
table
without
a
seperate
identification
system
like
RFID
and
an
overhead
tracking
system
with
cameras,
which
was
the
previous
standard
way
to
achieve
such
a
physical
interaction
with
the
screen
output.
These
bases
can
either
be
representative
(such
as
if
they
were
printed
with
images
of
different
dinosaurs),
or
literal,
providing
providing