AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

Museon’s mission is to holistically educate the broad public on the relationship between nature and culture, specifically targeted to families with children and school groups. In light of renewal plans, Museon sought external input on ways to improve their permanent exhibition. The project included an extensive research about Museon and its visitors as well as the design of a concept for the new exhibition and recommendations for the museum. Two major findings are that the current exhibition setup lacks transitions between the various themes it addresses, making it hard for visitors to follow the narrative, or “red line”, of the permanent exhibition. This consequently impacts parents’ ability to relate to and communicate this narrative with their children, impairing children’s retained learning and overall impression upon leaving the museum. Furthermore, it was observed that the majority of families visiting the museum have younger children than the museum currently targets (children aged 3-12 instead of 8-14) and that the intellectual needs of this younger target group are barely considered, often resulting in disruptions to family communication. In order to address these two shortcomings, the design process investigated ways to create a narrative experience across the permanent exhibition. Transitions in between adjacent exhibition topics were designed in order to create an understandable flow for the visitors. A concept proposal was designed for the food exhibition, in which different information levels were created to trigger learning and communication across all family members. A deliberate effort was made to include the needs of young children (aged 3-5) in the learning interaction, in order to promote active family communication. The project outlines approaches for how the museum can adapt its exhibition to fit the needs of its focus group while creating unity in its narrative, and how it can communicate these changes to its visitors. A prototype was built to illustrate one aspect of the total concept, and was tested on families with children by observing their interactions with the prototype in the museum. The main findings of the testing highlighted that although users engaged with the exhibit element and discussed it as a family, younger children were still over-challenged by the installation due to it being too textual. Families with older children, on the other hand, were sufficiently stimulated. The project highlights recommendations for how to further adapt the entire exhibition as well as the prototype concept to the needs of families with children. These recommendations outline how to appropriately provide clear orientation and subtle guidance, as well as how to layer and adjust the information to the demands of different target groups, in order to achieve a satisfying visitor experience.