Many of us would agree that interactive displays enhance the visitor experience through new methods of display, and so develop cultural and social benefits for visitors. What is less agreed upon, however, is the actual impact of these interactive displays, their widespread deployment and the views of staff as to their benefits.

Hence in this study, Kevin Curran, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, University of Ulster and Catherine Dhanjal, Editor in Chief, Multimedia Information and Technology Journal, emailed over 150 museums, galleries and public exhibition institutions to ascertain their thoughts on interactive displays.

They had 60 replies from the South of Ireland and Northern Ireland and summarise the responses to the short survey here:

1. Have you interactives in your institution?
70 per cent of those surveyed stated that they had interactive displays.

2. If so, how many?
The number of displays varied from none to over a hundred. The average was five.

3. How much have you spent (roughly) in the last ten years on interactives?
Here again, the amounts spent varied quite a lot from £1,000 up to £3,000,000. The average seemed to be around £20,000.

4. Do you plan to install new interactives in the next 12 months?
Here the standard answer was ‘no’. Some replied to state that funds were simply not there. It must be stated that Ireland is in a deep recession.

5. Do you feel they are a useful addition?
There was a multitude of responses here. Some mentioned that they are expensive and unreliable compared with other ways of imparting information to the public but the majority stated that they were useful. It was mentioned that they are expected by people when they visit a heritage centre. Visitors seemed to respond well to the ‘discovery’ aspect of interactives, the multisensory nature of some of them and this helps with their memory recall and learning potential as they go through. It was thought that the ‘touch’ aspect of a lot of the exhibitions broke down the barriers usually expected by people when they visited a ‘museum’.

6. Do you have many problems with them (e.g. rebooting, breaking down etc)?
The vast majority reported having to reboot them occasionally and 35 per cent found them a hindrance and actually found it embarrassing to have to hide them or explain they were not working to people. One centre also said they work fine until you let the public loose in the gallery!

7. How often do you need to call for technical support to fix interactives?
This varied, but every three months seemed to be a frequent answer.

8. Do museum staff find them a hindrance or a help?
They were mostly considered as a promising and helpful facility. A common answer was that a guided tour by a person is more enjoyable.

It was interesting to note that gallery staff find any repetitive noise annoying after a while so care should be taken by the interactives designers in this respect. Public expectation of computer interactives is now very high as they have very good computers at home so care should be taken there as well. It is also difficult to incorporate them into tours and activities. Visitors can be made aware of them and after that they are usually a self-directed exercise. One respondent mentioned that no procedures were put in place regarding booting up and shutting down. Museum staff had to do this – even on weekends and bank holidays as it was not in their caretaker’s job description. In that case, they were seen as a hindrance.

9. Have you seen or read about any interesting interactive displays lately?
A number of examples were provided here such as the Yeats display at the National Library, Dublin; the Science Museum in Trinity College, Dublin; the Waterford Treasures exhibition, Waterford; various science exhibits at W5 in Belfast; Stroboscopic dripping tap, Boston Science Museum; Love exhibition at Valentines and the Silver Sounds exhibit (see Figure 1) in the Naughton Gallery at Queen’s University, Belfast.

10. Any other comments?
One respondent mentioned that interactives are a bit unhygienic, as everyone touches them (Figure 2). Earpieces can also be unhygienic or they can be interruptive to visitors and staff due to loud music and noise. Some stated that once the content has been designed and produced it becomes fixed in place for a long period. The cost of redesigning and changing content or equipment can be prohibitive. They suggested that if museums invest increasingly in interactives/media, then they will need staff with the necessary skills to be able to update content on a more frequent basis without resorting to external contractors.

They are a good alternative to having original artifacts on display, where audiences can still learn about certain objects in the collection in greater detail. They can also be a nice distraction from reading exhibition panels. The challenge is to integrate them with material displays in a way which does not impinge on the objects or alienate as many visitors as it attracts. School groups usually respond well to the interactive; however older visitors often require assistance in using it. Some felt that they steal large chunks of the budget away from the specimens and are wanted for novelty rather than because they are the best answer to the question. Others felt they are vastly overrated as a tool for learning and that the instant transfer of information is not generally retained for long.

Finally, one respondent stated that they work with a number of cultural institutions (museums, galleries, interpretive centres) to help them to improve the accessibility of services for people with disabilities and wished to highlight that there are often accessibility problems with interactive or multimedia pieces for people with disabilities.

They often come across video-based displays with no subtitles or transcript available – which will exclude many people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Touch screen units that rely on the heat of a human hand are also not usable by amputees. Kiosk units (effectively a PC within a fixed display/keyboard unit) often are not accessible for wheelchair users or shorter people and many museum displays where the size of text or positioning of text on display cards can often mean that the text is not readable by many people with vision impairments. In general, it is possible to address many of these issues at little or no incremental cost, if consideration is given at design stage to meeting the requirements of all visitors.