ABSTRACT

The modern museum offers visitors many ways of interacting with exhibits, from hands-on interactives that help visitors learn basic science principles in children’s museums, to touch screen computer displays that encourage visitors to delve more deeply into the background and context of important works in art museums. To be effective educational or informative tools, museum interactives need not involve advanced computer technologies; indeed, one finds very few museums today that are without some form of interactive technology. With the exception, perhaps, of museums that take an extremely minimalist approach to exhibition (going so far as removing all exhibit labels, for instance, from their galleries), it is rare for someone to encounter a completely passive experience when visiting a museum.