Redesign of museum installations with interactive and sensorial experience approach

In the past decades, museums continued to be demanded to surpass their primary function as a place for archival and historical artifact conservation to be a medium for knowledge dissemination as well as recreation. The “do not touch” slogan that is often placed on the typical museum glass box is considered no longer relevant when museums must satisfy visitors’ desires instead of solely focusing on objects. The aim of this research is to answer the challenge by integrating technology in redesigning conventional museum installations. The utilised methodologies are literature review and case study to develop new products. It integrates theories related to interaction and sensory experience into a design framework which includes types of experience, types of attraction, modes of apprehension, and five senses. Sherlock Holmes Museum is chosen as a case study with four installation redesigns as the final outcomes, namely: (1) Holmes Loop, (2) Holmes Guide, (3) Holmes POV, and (4) Holmes Puzzle. The generated installation concepts prove that product design has an essential role in cultural innovation so that museums continue to be relevant in between technological advancement. On the other hand, the design framework succeeds in helping idea generation process, thus it can be used as a reference to develop installations in other museums.

This is a translation of a manuscript published in “Desainpedia Journal of Urban Design, Lifestyle & Behaviour” https://doi.org/10.36262/dpj.v3i1.1001

INTRODUCTION

Over the past few decades, museums have been continually required to go beyond their primary function as places for archiving and conserving historical artefacts to become venues for disseminating knowledge and recreation. With this, museums place greater emphasis on the human element (visitors) rather than the object element (artefacts), and on how information can be conveyed effectively, entertainingly, and even meaningfully at the individual level (Lake-Hammond & Waite, 2010; Eklund, 2020). To address this challenge, technology plays an important role in enabling museums to shed the outdated or boring image often associated with them (Zulandari et al., 2021). Certainly, in creating appropriate technology, product designers are needed to ensure that artefacts become solutions to problems. This paper will discuss how the discipline of product design, particularly interaction design in public spaces, can be applied to the design of exhibition installations, using interactive and sensory experience approaches as an alternative cultural innovation within museums.

Visitor experience in museums comprises several layers, ranging from the aesthetic, sensorial, and intellectual to the social, all of which must be packaged within a unifying thread in the form of a narrative. In sensory experience itself, museums strive not to rely solely on visual elements but to create a sensory shift by engaging other senses, such as hearing, smell, and touch (Wang, 2020). Museums can also use several elements simultaneously or in a multisensory manner, as elaborated in the theory of the five senses (Lee, 2013).

This concept obviously contrasts with the “do not touch” signage often affixed to the glass cases protecting artefacts in museums, particularly before the twentieth century. From this, it can be concluded that museums’ primary focus in the past was the conservation of artefacts rather than the quality of the visitor experience. Even so, this situation is becoming increasingly rare. In fact, museums compete to formulate strategies that allow visitors to interact with the objects on display (Candlin, 2008; Lacey & Saithan, 2014). For this reason, Howes et al. (2014) use the term sensory gymnasium to describe the ideal museum condition today. Some examples he mentions include visitors placing a shell against their ear, smelling the scent of an object, and assembling small parts of an object to achieve the desired form.

This paper will further discuss sensory and interactive experiences in museums, which will be used as the design framework. Then, four design alternatives that apply this framework will be described along with their evaluations. The study uses a case study of literary tourism at the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London, England. Literary tourism often involves visiting real places mentioned in fictional works or locations where the author once lived (Hoppen et al., 2014). On the other hand, the Sherlock Holmes case is unique because the fictional character is treated as if he were real, and the museum is built based on the home of the main character, located at 221B Baker Street (Evans, 2019). Despite the museum’s popularity, its installations remain passive and conventional. It may be that the museum wishes to preserve the authenticity of the 1900s period that forms the backdrop of the story, but that does not mean innovation is impossible. For example, the Titanic Museum in Belfast successfully integrates interactive technology to present a classic story set in the past, thereby strengthening the theatrical elements visitors’e visitors’ empathy for the tragedy (Scheibe, 2014).

Ultimately, design is expected to serve as a bridge, so that cultural products are no longer perceived as static but as active, capable of being effectively reconstructed in the minds of museum visitors, both individually and collectively (Claisse et al., 2020). The design framework developed has summarised several strategies related to this. Guided by this framework, designers play a role in translating information and packaging artefacts into an interactive concept that is easy to understand and entertaining. In addition, the conceptual design work presented in this paper is expected to serve as inspiration for developing heritage technology in other museums, so that the benefits of technology can be felt across all fields.

RESEARCH METHOD

The research method is the design of a product concept, beginning with a literature review on visitor experience, sensory experience, and user-technology interaction. The data obtained were then used to create a design framework and design brief, namely, to increase user interaction. After the design framework was explained in depth, online observations of the Sherlock Holmes Museum were conducted to select four exhibition installations with potential for development. The selected objects were passive objects such as brochures, wax figures, and framed pictures. After the objects had been agreed upon, the design process was carried out in accordance with the design framework, requiring the designer to continually conduct evaluations to ensure the implementation of theory in the redesign of the exhibition installations. The entire research process was integrated with the Design for Social Innovation course taught by the first author.

DESIGN FRAMEWORK

In general, both in museums and in other environments, experience-based learning must balance hands-on and minds-on engagement to effectively convey information (Ahmad et al., 2014). An example of minds-on activation is when visitors engage in problem-solving rather than passively reading information (Young, 2002). This strategy can begin with simple activities such as answering questions, finding hidden objects within the museum, or finding a way out of an exhibition.

To achieve this aim, the study applies strategies based on the theoretical foundations of experience-type (Doering, 2007) and attraction-type (Pekarik et al., 2014) clustering. The experiences referred to are social, object, cognitive, and introspective experiences. Meanwhile, the attraction types theory, also known as the IPOP theory, stands for Ideas, People, Object, and Physical. These two theories complement each other, as shown in Figure 1.

The first aspect that becomes the primary focus of interaction design is social experience. Visits to museums are often social, with visitors coming together with family or friends (Eklund, 2020), so it is beneficial if the interaction created can accommodate more than two directions. For example, when an installation succeeds in sparking a discussion that also involves visitors who previously did not know one another. In addition to interactions with fellow visitors, the interaction in question can also be conducted with museum staff, such as tour guides.

The second aspect, namely object experience, can accommodate both artefact-based attractions and physical-based attractions. The difference is that artefact-based attractions focus on an object’s aesthetic elements, such as colour, texture, and form. If the object is historical, rare, or only available for viewing at the museum for a limited period, visitor enthusiasm is expected to increase. Meanwhile, physical-based attractions rely on sensory elements to evoke somatic sensations. Whereas artefact-based attractions may rely solely on visual elements, physical-based attractions must be interactive.

Then, from a sensory-experience perspective, the design process incorporates the five-senses approach popularised by Lee (2013). According to him, good experiences are created through good sensory experiences. For example, when riding a motorbike, we also smell the scent of petrol and the road, feel the rubber texture of the handlebars, and hear the exhaust. He uses this theory to redesign alarm clocks and irons that possess a broader sensory experience.

In practice, taste is indeed the most challenging sense to involve, so the most effective applications of the five senses theory are usually related to the culinary world, such as in restaurants (Liu et al., 2022), food packaging (Zhang & Park, 2023), beverage promotion (Rathee & Rajain, 2017), and cooking traditional dishes (Meacci & Liberatore, 2018). However, even though exhibition design cannot involve all senses, this concept is useful for ensuring that at least more than one sense is active when visitors interact with a museum exhibition installation.

Furthermore, idea-based attractions can accommodate the third and fourth aspects, namely cognitive experience, which relates to enhancing understanding of the objects or the exhibition themes, and introspective experience, which focuses on internalisation. Internalisation refers to visitors subjectively interpreting objects in relation to their self-image, such as linking an exhibition to personal memories, imagining what happened in the past, or experiencing it almost spiritually. Both cognitive and introspective experiences evoke strong emotions. Through this, museum visitors continuously interpret the stimuli they receive, indirectly tracing the narrative spaces created by the museum (Lake-Hammond & Waite, 2010).

To complement the interaction-based design process, the research framework also integrates the modes of apprehension theory, which comprises contemplation, comprehension, discovery, interaction, and participation (Lord, 2001), as illustrated in Figure 1. Guided by these three theories, the design is expected to accommodate as many aspects as possible to make the exhibition livelier.

EXHIBITION REDESIGN

With this design framework in mind, four works were produced: Holmes Loop, Holmes Guide, Holmes POV, and Holmes Puzzle. Photographs of the old objects and the changes after the technology-based redesign are shown in Figures 2 and 3. The following are explanations of each redesigned exhibition installation.

(1) Holmes Loop responds to a framed display placed on top of a glass case. The frame presents information on 11 iconic objects from the Sherlock Holmes stories, such as the hat, cigar, magnifying glass, and violin, using very small text. Meanwhile, the glass case protects several small objects. It can be imagined that visitors must bend down and bring their eyes close to read the displayed information. Without removing the original objects that hold historical value, Holmes Loop serves as a replacement for the frame’s informational role. Holmes Loop consists of one hologram machine and 11 coins, each representing an object. To obtain information, visitors must insert a coin into the slot on the hologram machine, after which the object’s image is projected into the air. In addition to written explanations, the machine provides audio explanations. Visitors can also rotate the hologram to view the object in three dimensions from various angles. The form of Holmes Loop itself is a metaphor for a magnifying glass.

(2) Holmes Guide is an application that digitises the museum brochure, which is still printed in black and white on standard copy paper. Besides presenting information about the artefacts that can be accessed more easily on visitors’ mobile phones, Holmes Guide also displays information about the museum, including a map, so that no objects are missed. There is also a feature that lets you take photographs with a museum-themed digital frame and share them on social media.

(3) Holmes POV is a futuristic glasses design that stems from the limited interaction visitors can have with the wax figures in the museum. If visitors wish to interact with the characters, using glasses can create a more immersive experience, as if the characters are truly speaking to them and standing right before them. Holmes’s POV consists of a pair of glasses, but if implemented, the concept could be turned into a virtual reality application, so the museum would not need to produce new products. The museum would simply need to provide headsets like Meta Quest to deliver the same experience.

(4) Holmes Puzzle identifies a passive corner in the museum where several small-framed paintings are easily overlooked by visitors. Through a combination of a large screen and a touchscreen embedded in a small, podium-like installation, Holmes Puzzle uses digital gamification to motivate visitors not only to view the paintings but also to understand them. On the large screen, the painting will be shown in disorganised pieces, and visitors must assemble the jigsaw puzzle correctly by touching the screen on the podium. Afterwards, the complete image and information about the painting will be displayed. Holmes Puzzle evokes visitors’ curiosity to complete the disordered puzzle, prompting them to stop and play. With this, objects that were previously often forgotten can be appreciated more attentively. Holmes Puzzle also serves a social role when visitors ask their friends for help solving it.

CONCEPT EVALUATION

The first evaluation concerns object-based experience, using the five-senses approach (Lee, 2013). The evaluation was conducted by comparing previous exhibition installations with the redesigned installations, assigning a score from 1 to 10 for each sense, as shown in Figure 4.

Unlike the common practice of adding taste to food-related experiences, all four installations struggle to enhance that sense. The Sherlock Holmes stories themselves do not emphasise this aspect. However, if an exhibition or museum is related to food, for example, concerning spices, enhancing taste would be more relevant.

Apart from taste, the sense of smell shows no significant change, or no change at all. Even so, sensory experience can still be built through the overall ambience rather than by focusing on a single installation, for instance, through the scent of classic wooden furniture, old books, cigar smoke, or a deliberately sprayed room fragrance. The most significant improvements are in the senses of hearing and touch, as the previous installations relied solely on vision. Holmes Loop and Holmes POV provide audio that supports the explanation. Indirectly, the products also become more inclusive because they can be accessed through multiple senses. Meanwhile, the enhancement of sound elements in Holmes Guide and Holmes Puzzle is not as high, as it consists solely of computer-generated sounds that provide feedback as users navigate the product interface.

As a conventional museum, the Sherlock Holmes Museum may not allow many artefacts to be touched. Therefore, the increase in the sense of touch is noticeable in the redesign process. The greatest sensory improvement is found in Holmes POV. Although there is no physical product to touch, “users” can “touch” the interface displayed through the glasses to interact with characters that were previously wax figures. Additionally, Holmes Puzzle requires users to touch the screen to complete a puzzle game before receiving information about the paintings in the museum.

In line with research findings that olfactory enhancement has the lowest impact and visual experience contributes the most to experience quality (Shao & Lin, 2021), the four installations aim to maximise vision-based scores. Initially, objects could only be viewed from afar, but the redesign produces interactive installations that can be viewed up close and, in the case of Holmes POV, even immersively. Visual aesthetics are also improved, for example, in Holmes Guide, which offers coloured illustrations with depth of perspective compared with the black-and-white paper previously distributed in the museum. Besides pictorial elements relating to form and colour, Holmes Loop also plays with spatial visualisation, in which holographic objects projected into the air relate to the room. With this, the sense of sight and the brain are more engaged in interpreting the object in three dimensions (Lacey & Sathian, 2014).

The second evaluation concerns the application of the cognitive, introspective, and social experience framework (Doering, 2007) through the lens of the modes of apprehension theory (Lord, 2001). The relationship between the theory and its implementation in the design outcomes is illustrated through Tables 1 and 2, which complement each other. In installation designs that include social experience, namely Holmes Loop and Holmes Puzzle, strategies are applied that enable users to engage socially with other visitors. Meanwhile, Holmes Guide and Holmes POV, which emphasise introspective experience, must ensure that the installation design contains contemplative elements.

Types of Experience	Holmes Loop	Holmes Guide	Holmes POV	Holmes Puzzle
Object	✔	✔	✔	✔
Cognitive	✔	✔	✔	✔
Introspective	–	✔	✔	–
Social	✔	–	–	✔

Modes of Apprehension	Holmes Loop	Holmes Guide	Holmes POV	Holmes Puzzle
Discovery	Using attractive hologram technology	Ensuring that no objects are missed	Narration relating to the character and the story	Using touch-screen technology with puzzles projected onto the wall
Interaction	Choosing the information to be viewed	Choosing the information to be viewed	Being in the same room as the character, dialogic interaction	Puzzle game (individual) to obtain information
Participation	Information can be viewed together	–	–	Other visitors can watch or help
Comprehension	Increasing understanding through 3-dimensional audio and visual	Increasing understanding of the object and the museum	Immersive presentation of dialogue	Similar information, but there is a separate challenge, which can be regarded as a reward
Contemplation	–	Evaluating the visit	Imagining oneself inside the story	–

The application of the discovery and interaction aspects cannot be separated from the earlier sensory evaluation. For example, in Holmes POV, dialogic interaction is employed (Claisse et al., 2020), allowing visitors to be in the same room as the characters encountered in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Simpler interactions are applied in Holmes Loop and Holmes Guide, allowing users to choose the information they want to view. Even so, the addition of these simple elements helps ensure that visitors are not forced to look at an overwhelming amount of information, reducing the likelihood that the information provided will go unread.

All four installation designs emphasise comprehension or understanding, the museum’s primary function as an educational medium. In the context of the Sherlock Holmes Museum case study, education encompasses not only formal textbook knowledge but also a deeper understanding of the elements that constitute the Sherlock Holmes universe and the stories behind it. For example, when viewing an image in a frame, visitors often overlook the image description, so the educational function is not conveyed. To prevent this scenario, Holmes Puzzle turns information into a reward given to visitors once they complete a challenge. As the process of receiving this information involves gamification, visitors are expected to pay close attention to the painting description displayed at the end of the game. In addition, the text is set in a larger size to make it easier to read.

The aspect of participation is applied in installations that can be viewed together with other visitors, namely Holmes Loop, which allows several people to press buttons to select or rotate the hologram image, and Holmes Puzzle, which can receive directions from other visitors—both acquaintances and strangers—to complete the game. Meanwhile, the aspect of contemplation is applied in Holmes Guide through the completion of the visit evaluation and in Holmes POV when users position themselves as characters other than themselves, placed within different spatial and temporal dimensions.

CONCLUSION

At present, the role of museums as institutions tasked with archiving and conserving artefacts is beginning to shift in order to meet visitors’ needs. As a result, the role of museums as educational and recreational institutions with social impact needs to be optimised as part of efforts to improve culture-based tourism. Museums are also expected to continue innovating to integrate technology into their exhibition installations.

This paper uses a case study of literary tourism at the Sherlock Holmes Museum in England, considering that the museum still uses many conventional installations, such as statues and paintings. The process was carried out based on a design framework designed from a combination of the theory of experience types (Doering, 2007), types of interest (Pekarik et al., 2014), and modes of understanding (Lord, 2001) to create interactive installations. In addition, the five-senses sensory approach (Lee, 2013) was also integrated so that the installations could explore elements beyond the visual.

From this framework, four redesign concepts for installations were produced, namely Holmes Loop, Holmes Guide, Holmes POV, and Holmes Puzzle. With this, the concepts can serve as a reference for applying a design framework grounded in interaction and sensory experience, enabling implementation in other museums. The concepts produced also demonstrate that product design plays an important role in cultural innovation, helping museums remain relevant amid the onslaught of technology.

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HOW TO CITE

Wiradarmo, A. A., Huwaida, N. F., Miranda, A., Lim, K. B., & Gayatri, N. L. P. A. (2024). Redesign of museum installations with interactive and sensorial experience approach. Desainpedia Journal of Urban Design, Lifestyle & Behaviour, 3(1), 53-62.

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