When you visit an exhibition, do you enjoy hands-on and touchscreen interactive experiences? Are interactive experiences a good way to learn something new or explore important topics within exhibitions? Kelly Gwynn, a student in Victoria University’s Master of Museum and Heritage Practice programme and with a decade of experience working in museums in Alaska, has undertaken research with Te Papa staff and visitors to compare digital and mechanical interactive experiences.
What are digital and mechanical interactives?
At Te Papa, some interactive experiences are fully physical and mechanical, others are fully digital using projectors or touchscreens, and still others combine physical and mechanical interaction with digital. Some examples of each of these types in the Te Taiao Nature exhibition can be seen below.
Physical and mechanical interactive experiences include: The water cycle, Leaf litter, and Tsunami tank.
Digital experiences include: Te Au | The Current, Moa and Haast’s Eagle digital label, and the Climate Converter.
Experiences that combine physical with digital include: Mauri Activator, Tuna Eel Adventure, and Earthquake House.
The research
I was interested in what visitors and staff thought about different interactive options. Te Papa team members, Amos Mann, Digital Experience Producer, and Paweł Banaś, Audience Insights Advisor, helped make this happen.
First, we decided on two interactives to use in this study – one to represent digital experiences and one to represent mechanical experiences. After much consideration, I landed on two from Te Taiao Nature: Te Au | The Current to represent digital interactives, and Water Cycle (aka The Ball Machine) to represent mechanical interactives. Although these two have many differences, they both deal with environmental topics in ways that highlight the trade-offs and impacts of human decisions and choices. Additionally, they are relatively comparable in physical size and scale of spectacle.
Water Cycle is a set of interconnected wall-mounted tracks with balls that can be set to roll down in different directions, in the style of a Rube Goldberg machine. Visitors use a set of control wheels to choose which track the balls roll down. Behind the tracks is a mural representing the geography of where water flows in our environment. Visitor choices represent water uses.
Te Au | The Current asks visitors how they feel about an idea for a solution to an environmental issue. Survey responses and comments appear on a large projection. Idea topics change regularly. The topic running during this study was:
“We should spend more on funding infrastructure that is resilient to climate change, and less on cutting carbon emissions. How do you feel about this idea?”
To capture visitor opinions, Amos and I spent some time on the gallery floor. Amos undertook observational research, timing and tallying visitors’ interactions, and noting when they didn’t engage with the interactive experiences, while I interviewed visitors after they used the interactives.
To capture Te Papa staff thoughts, I created an email survey Amos and Paweł sent out to staff.
What Te Papa visitors did and told us about interactive experiences
In short, visitors told us they like interactives, and are disappointed when they are not working.
In total, I collected 19 visitor surveys: 10 from Water Cycle users and 9 from Te Au users.
Here are some of the visitor responses after interacting with Water Cycle:
- Likes physicality of it (x2)
- Watching the balls is “mesmerising”/ appreciation for mechanics (x2)
- “Don’t really get what all this is supposed to mean”/“Never thought about it”- kid likes it
- References to current water-related events
- “Better than just a bland diagram of the water cycle”
- “Sometimes it’s broken”
Here are some of the visitor responses after interacting with Te Au | The Current:
- Wonders how honest people are (x4)
- Everyone should be educated on climate change/relevant to everyone (x3)
- The exhibit is not really saying we should stop climate change; saying we should be prepared
- Likes contributing to exhibit
- Positive observation of te reo Māori and English in exhibit
- Not enough information about climate change
- “Important [parents] lead by example”
In response to the question “What is your main takeaway from this exhibit?” only two out of 10 people mentioned a takeaway that was directly relevant to the water cycle topic. In contrast, everyone I interviewed about Te Au | The Current mentioned the importance of learning about climate change.
Visitor ratings of a mechanical and a digital interactive
I asked visitors to rate the interactives on a scale of 1-5. Overall, both did very well. The lone 2 rating on Te Au was because “there wasn’t enough information.”
Observed interactions with a mechanical and a digital interactive
When analysing the observable behaviour of visitors, we found there are substantially more visitors observing Te Au without interacting than with the Water Cycle. A possible explanation is that Te Au is in a major thoroughfare, and Water Cycle is not. By and large, people are using the interactives as intended, with only one instance of griefing, or purposefully using it incorrectly. Both were also popular with visitors in groups.
What Te Papa staff told us about interactive experiences
Staff are overwhelmingly positive about both mechanical and digital interactives. Their main concerns were that interactive experiences are adequately resourced and funded, and contribute to the story being told, with each type having its own benefits.
14 staff members responded to the survey. Responses were from both back-of-house and front-of-house staff members.
| Digital Positives | Mechanical Positives |
| Can see all sides of an object | Tactile |
| Fewer instructions required | Limited text/ fewer instructions needed |
| Encouraged repeat use | Activates body/brain connection |
| Ability to make something | Good for concepts that are hard to explain, but easy to demonstrate |
| Social | |
| Good for groups and individuals | Good for multigenerational groups |
| Agency | See effects of interaction |
| Immersive | Immersive |
The table above includes some of the responses to the staff questionnaire asking respondents to list positives aspects of digital and mechanical interactives. “Ability to make something” is referring to a former digital interactive at Te Papa in which visitors could use digital technology to create their own squid. I included “good for multigenerational groups” in the same category as “social” as both imply multiple people.
There is some similarity in the answers from staff. Both types of interactives can:
- be immersive;
- require fewer instructions;
- be social;
- allow visitors to have agency/ see the results of their interaction.
I thought it was interesting that some respondents included “encouraged repeat use” and “ability to make something” only under digital interactives. I cannot count the number of times I’ve used the same art supplies to make something, or seen my children use the same couch cushions to build a different fort, or create different things using the same LEGO set. Suffice to say, I don’t think digital is the only way to encourage repeated use or give visitors the ability to make something.
Digital environments can be immersive and activate the brain-body connection as well. Take the Climate Converter, for example. The entire space is created specifically with interaction in mind. Visitors must move between different spaces in the interactive in order to make the changes and see what happens, thus activating the brain-body connection mentioned while immersed in an entirely separate space.
I asked staff about the strengths of digital and mechanical interactives:
| What Digital Does Better | What Mechanical Does Better |
| Easy to use/ flexibility | Good to be off screens |
| Videos instead of static images | Digital can be distracting |
| Create imagined realities | Good physicality/ can be easier to connect (x3) |
| Condensing information (x4) | Engages more senses (x2) |
| Feels cooler, so more interested to learn | Non-screen activities now a novelty |
| Immersive experience | Feels more embedded in the real world |
| Capacity to add levels to interpretation (x5) | More accessible, especially for different languages |
| More options (x2) | |
| Connection to museum/ subject |
Digital and mechanical interactives are used for accomplishing different goals, and therefore have different benefits. The importance of novelty turned up in both categories. When touchscreens, for example, first became commonplace, many museums began incorporating them immediately. And visitors do expect some level of digital interactivity. But another staff member’s response was that non-screen activities are now a novelty, pointing out that that visitors will have “more stories to tell” after an experience with a manual interactive as compared to a digital one.
One notable response from the question regarding success in various media was that digital is easier to update. However, the respondent included a caveat: “In theory, there is greater flexibility [but] the time and human resourcing required to is often underestimated.” This aligns with my previous experience in Alaska.
Staff and visitors agree
Both staff and visitors agree that interactives are a good thing to have. As one visitor put it, “It [an interactive] brings you in and actually gets you involved.” Is there a preference? As one staff member put it, “…as long as something’s interactive, it’s successful.”
The respondents to the survey were all enthusiastic about all types of interactives. There were no definitive preferences noted in the surveys. They did note that each type has its own inherent challenges and triumphs. When asked to describe an unsuccessful interactive and the reason behind its lack of success, the most common reason listed was lack of planning and connection to the broader story being told in the gallery.
From the responses, staff prefer interactives to be well-thought out, sufficiently resourced and funded, and connected to the story being told. So, essentially, choice of digital or mechanical depends on the story being told, the overall design of the exhibit, staff resource and funding, and what specific piece of information the curators are trying to convey.
One staff member said it best: “Visitors really enjoy engaging with the collections via interactives. They’re super important!”
This research showed that interactives of all types can be successful, but we need to pay attention to what we want them to do, how they fit into the story of the exhibit, and we need to be sure there are adequate staff resources and budget to maintain them over the life of the exhibition.
