Why Museum Exhibits Are an Exceptional Communication Tool

Museum exhibits have the power to bring different disciplines together: psychology, marketing, and fabrication, to name a few. They allow visitors to learn without being confined to a set amount of time, to guide themselves through an experience, and to form their own thoughts on a topic. Learning through museum exhibits isn’t contained by the museum’s walls or outdoor parameters. The connection extends the effects of the experience past the time of the visit, making them a distinct medium of communication.

Museum exhibits offer a flexible model for structuring information.?

When visitors enter an exhibit, they’re met with a ton of information delivered to them in multiple ways, whether they can interact, read, listen, watch, or otherwise. How to structure that learning process is totally up to the museum based on how visitors have engaged with past exhibits and what format fits with the subject.

Museum exhibit elements can be flexible, too. While you might have a specific completion order in mind, each visitor has the ability to choose the order in which they consume exhibit materials, which gives the individual a sense of freedom and the enjoyment of curation.

Museum exhibits can form or reframe awareness of a topic and one’s attitude toward it.

By allowing visitors to learn about topics in a wide variety of ways, museum exhibits can completely change the way someone thinks. For example, a child might visit Great Lakes Science Center, see an exhibit on astronauts from Ohio, and want to become an astronaut. Since museum exhibits are spatial experience models, they’re able to teach in a way sometimes schools or parental figures cannot.

These formulations or reframes of a topic also happen in a very limited amount of time. Since museum environments are able to hit most—if not all—of the senses at once, awareness of the topic happens within the span it takes to see the exhibit rather than hours or years spent searching for information. This solidifies long-lasting memories and connections with the content in the space, allowing people to physically navigate the architecture of a story, product, or concept in a way that supports understanding and invites participation.

Museum exhibits encourage collaborative learning.

Designed environments are social spaces that create opportunities for people to explore and expand ideas together. Visitors can come as a group and bond through a shared experience, or people observing/interacting with the same exhibit may strike up a conversation. When used in a self-guided manner, well-designed environments motivate people to share their experience with others.

Effective museum exhibits are tailored to their target markets, but amazing museum exhibits spark curiosity. They’re a way of communicating unlike any other medium—demonstrating that using a designed environment to tell stories offers an unparalleled experience benefiting the imaginations of visitors.