MAAM ANNUAL CONFERENCE - COFFEE BAR. PHIL: My client is crazy! MONIQUE: Your donut looks good. PHIL: They have an awful touchscreen idea! MONIQUE: Mm. Worse than some I’ve heard?PHIL: Way worse, I know it! …

In museums and beyond, QR codes are having a comeback. They were invented a generation ago to track parts on Japanese assembly lines. US marketers tried to popularize them 10 years back. They flopped. Then two things happened. …

[NEW PODCAST] What if there were a better way? Are our concepts not good enough, because we’re not developing enough of them? What would happen if we merged “Agile” with “Waterfall”? We’ll ask PhD candidate Clare Brown. …

LED tiles come in different “pitches”. But what is pitch? Which is best? LEDs are teensy lights in black tiles that build walls like bricks. The fineness of the image depends on the spacing between the lights. That spacing is called “pitch”. …

ICYMI, last weekend U2 debuted The Sphere, a small moon coated with LEDs. Can’t tell LED from LCD? You’re not alone. We’re all pretending. The IT folks made the acronyms similar so we’ll be confused and accept the price tag. (Just kidding, IT friends!) …

What’s the A in DEAI, and why are the ADA guidelines not enough anymore? What’s intersectionality? If ADA isn’t our goal, what comes after? This is a must-listen episode, featuring two of the most important voices in museum accessibility today. …

This idea came up three times this week. Is there something in the water supply? Here’s the principle again: Curators base their careers on knowledge of the subject. Everyone else should base their careers on ignorance of the subject. …

All squares are rectangles — but not all rectangles are squares. And nobody goes around insisting on calling squares rectangles. Uh, let me explain. We can plan our exhibitions to be “experiences”. And we should. I do. But what are we, specifically, making? …

[NEW PODCAST EPISODE] How can exhibition teams help to decolonize design? What’s a supertoken, and why are cluster hires a better strategy? The new book offers answers to all these questions and more, thanks to author Dr. Dori Tunstall. …

How many different types of experiences should one interactive media element offer? Easy. One. A laptop can have hundreds of software applications in it. But exhibition interactives aren’t laptops. …

The most important takeaway of any interactive should get communicated even if visitors don’t interact. Quiz: what is the one thing every interactive element should do? (Hint: it’s the same as any other element.) Answer: communicate its main message. …

“Let’s go to the museum so we can use some touchscreens!” — Said No Visitor, Ever. Have you been in a newly-opened exhibition lately, filled with touchscreens worth millions, that nobody uses? I have. A big, famous one. We have reached Peak Touchscreen. …

UPDATED — Priceless objects studied by scholars (Neanderthal skulls, the Rosetta Stone) often can’t travel. So we make scientific-quality facsimiles for borrowing. These are “forensic” quality, identical in every detail, worthy of study. And as designers, we can exploit this idea. …

Some words confuse as much as help. Here’s a cheat sheet. Artifact: A genuine preserved collection object, with provenance (documented chain of ownership) on display. Facsimile (also called Replica, Reproduction, or Repro): A copy of an artifact …

A little pro-visitor devotional. We forget. We forget every day, and need reminding. We forget that we are experts. Therefore we can’t unlearn our subject. We forget we can’t instinctively empathize with our visitors’ level of knowledge, so we have to discipline ourselves …

Immersive. Marketing buzzword of the moment? Or evergreen basic principle, worth a spot in the toolkit? Both. Let’s clarify something. “Immersive” just means “adding large, digital audiovisuals to a physical space”. …

I have a lot of Google Alerts. I’ve had one for the phrase “interactive exhibition” forever. And I’ve had one for “immersive experience” for a year or so. The web continues to fill up with articles about “interactive exhibitions”. More than “immersive experiences”. But …

What’s an overused ancient word describing an awe-powered temporary physical experience that triggers deep attention? Let’s spend a little time on a highly requested topic. First, a recap of basic principles, some unexpected. …

Sometimes we’re stuck with projectors in bright spaces. Reader A.H. writes: "... we are just embarking on a battle to control the amount of light in an exhibition so the projection doesn’t look milky. Unfortunately, the space can’t be dark …" Here are some approaches …

Technology changes fast. Flat panels are bigger, LED is cheaper. Both work in sunlight. In classrooms and conferences, projectors are fading. But they are sometimes still necessary in (darker) exhibitions. When? In six “S” situations: …