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Custom exhibit interactives

Exhibit Interactives

An exhibit is something you do.

Our goal is more activity and less static text. Whether it's a touchscreen, a flip door, a replica you can hold or a room you can climb into, we'd rather visitors learn by doing something than by reading about it.

These are the six kinds of interactivity we build most, named for what the visitor does. Each one comes with a plain note on what it takes to keep running, because the best interactive is the one still working in year five.

Every example is from one of our own projects. Most link to the full story of that exhibit on our work pages.

Screens

Tap

Touchscreens, push-button video and audio, projection, and playback that starts when someone walks up. A screen earns its place when there's more story than wall — oral histories, film clips, a map that changes with a tap — and when the content will change over the life of the exhibit.

What it takes: power at the wall, a computer or player somewhere it can breathe, and a plan for who updates the content. We design the interface to match the exhibit and keep every touch zone within reach-range heights.

Simplest version: one button, one clip. It costs a fraction of a touchscreen and visitors use it more.

We ask every time whether the added complication of technology is worth it. Often it is. Sometimes a flip door tells the story better.

 
Digital interactives we've designed, programmed and built, in motion.
Touchscreen showing the contaminated-water science experiment at the KHEL exhibit
A contaminated-water simulation at KHEL — watch the news break, then test the sample yourself.
Visitor using a vertical touchscreen mounted to an exhibit column at InfoZone
Vertical touchscreens on the display columns at InfoZone, with an interface designed to match the rest of the exhibit and mounted within accessible reach.
Touchscreen radio clip library in an exhibit about Edwin Howard Armstrong
A library of radio clips to listen through, for an exhibit about the inventor of FM radio.
Touchscreen map showing Quiviran import and export locations
A trade map at Quivira — tap a good, see where it travelled.
Interactive touchscreen kiosks inside the sea turtle mobile classroom
Kiosks that know which turtle you're carrying, in the sea turtle mobile classroom.
Retro television in the Johnny Carson exhibit living room
A TV that fades the sound up when someone sits down, at the Johnny Carson exhibit.
Push-button video player at the Pizza Hut Museum
One button, one clip, at the Pizza Hut Museum.
Video projected onto the wooden panel structure of the Chisholm Trail traveling exhibit
Sometimes the screen is a wall: the trail route projected onto raw wood, in the Chisholm Trail traveling exhibit.
QR code interactive element at the Pizza Hut Museum
And sometimes the screen is the one in the visitor's pocket.

Mechanical

Flip

Doors that lift, panels that swivel, a Rolodex that spins, a filter that swings over a pattern to show the answer. A question on the outside, an answer underneath. These are the workhorses: nothing to boot, nothing to update, and a six-year-old and a sixty-year-old use them the same way.

What it takes: hardware that survives ten thousand cycles. We use through-bolted hinges, stainless pivots, and thick laminate or HDPE for anything that gets grabbed. Expect to replace a flipper or two over the years, not the unit.

Where it shines: reader rails and panels that would otherwise be a paragraph. A flip door turns a fact into a guess, and people remember their guesses.

A family gathers around a pedestal with red trench-maze trays wired to a buzzer
Trench Football — a playable reproduction of a game artifact displayed in the case behind it, at The Beautiful Game.
Oversized Rolodex interactive in the Johnny Carson exhibit
A Rolodex you can scroll, with the real one in a case nearby, at Johnny Carson.
Carnac the Magnificent envelope interactive in the Johnny Carson exhibit
Carnac's envelopes — lift one, read the joke.
Red-filter reveal panel at the Will Rogers exhibit
A red-filter reveal for the Will Rogers exhibit.
Question panel with an attached clear red revealer at the Quivira exhibit
The same trick on a reader rail at Quivira — swing the filter over, the answer appears.
Swivel panel interactive on the estuary wall of the mobile classroom
Swivel panels on the estuary wall of the mobile classroom.
Operation-style surgery simulator game inside the mobile classroom
A surgery simulator: lab coat on, remove what the turtle swallowed.
Hands-on mechanical interactive at the Nebraska Archeology exhibit
A hands-on add-on built into the rail, Nebraska Archeology.

Tactile

Touch

Things meant to be handled: 3D-printed copies of the artifacts behind glass, scale models, material samples, a figurine you carry through the exhibit. Tactile pieces are the fastest way to open a collection to visitors who can't see it, and everyone else reaches for them too.

What it takes: a scan or model of the original, a print or casting in a material that can be cleaned, and a mount that holds it at a reachable height. Braille and a QR link to an audio description finish the job.

Good pairing: tactile plus a screen — an NFC chip inside the object tells the kiosk who's holding it.

Detail of the 3D-printed tactile library at the Pizza Hut Museum
The tactile library at the Pizza Hut Museum — 3D-printed artifacts, braille labels and QR-linked audio.
A 3D-printed model from the Pizza Hut Museum tactile library
A printed copy of an artifact that lives behind glass elsewhere in the museum.
Tray of six sea turtle figurines for visitors to choose from
Six turtle figurines, one per group, each with a chip inside — sea turtle mobile classroom.
Model turtle excluder device net hanging above the open-ocean station
A model Turtle Excluder Device you can put your hand through.
Wall cases and a three-dimensional prairie homestead model in the Germans from Russia exhibit
A prairie homestead in three dimensions, at Germans from Russia.

Play structures

Climb

A rover with a wheel that turns, a room that whirls, an archway to walk through, a table stocked for making things. For the youngest visitors the exhibit is the interactive, so we build it to be climbed on.

What it takes: a welded steel frame under whatever the visitor sees, radiused edges, finishes that wipe clean, and a review against the same standards you'd apply to a playground slide. Anything that moves gets a pinch-point check.

Lowest-cost version: an activity table with materials and instructions. It runs itself.

Preschool child playing on the lunar rover at Omaha Children's Museum
The lunar rover at Omaha Children's Museum — a welded steel frame under a body built to be climbed.
Whirlwind room built from HDPE and clear polycarbonate at Omaha Children's Museum
A whirlwind room in HDPE and polycarbonate, Omaha Children's Museum.
Magical science archway at Omaha Children's Museum
An archway to walk through, Omaha Children's Museum.
Children's activity table with materials and stools at the Quivira exhibit
An activity table stocked with materials and instructions, at Quivira.
Children's interactive in the Chisholm Trail traveling exhibit
The children's corner of the Chisholm Trail traveling exhibit.

Participation

Mark

Stickers on a map, a prompt board, a stencil, a grinding stone, a recipe card to take home. No power, no moving parts, and people linger at these longer than at anything with a screen. The exhibit fills up with the visitors' own marks.

What it takes: consumables somebody restocks — stickers, sticky notes, paper — and a surface that can be cleared. We print maps on the back of glass so the stickers scrape off, and mount prompt boards low enough for a wheelchair or a six-year-old.

Why we keep building them: they work on day one and day one thousand, and the responses tell you what your visitors actually think.

Visitors placing stickers on a glass-backed map in the Japanese Hall exhibit
A sticker map on the back of glass at Japanese Hall — visitors mark where they're from; when it fills, the stickers scrape off.
Response board with magnetic prompts and sticky notes in the Japanese Hall exhibit
A prompt board: read the question, answer on a sticky note.
Brand Your Beeves stencil interactive at the Chisholm Trail exhibit
Brand Your Beeves — draw a cattle brand with stencils, in the Chisholm Trail traveling exhibit.
Corn grinding station with a grinding stone and scale at the Quivira exhibit
A grinding stone and a scale at Quivira — it's hard work, which is the point.
Table display of preserves, recipes and an embroidered cloth in the Germans from Russia exhibit
Recipe cards to take home, from the Foodways case at Germans from Russia.

Scenic environments

Step in

A talk-show stage with the cue cards in the rail, a Paris café you can walk into, a mountain road that climbs through the gallery, a living room from the 1960s. Sometimes the interactive is the room. The visitor's part is to stand in it, take the stage, and take the picture.

What it takes: scenic carpentry and paint that read as real from three feet away and survive a school group from three inches. Anything a visitor stands on gets built like a floor, not a set.

Where it shines: the entrance. A space that puts visitors inside the story before they've read a word does more than any panel can.

Recreated Tonight Show monologue stage with curtain and cue-card rail in the Johnny Carson exhibit
The monologue stage at Johnny Carson — his cue cards are in the rail, so you can read his jokes or try your own.
Sculpted mountain-road ramp inside the Pikes Peak Hill Climb Experience museum
A ramp shaped like the highway, climbing through the Pikes Peak Hill Climb Experience.
Recreated Café du Coin storefront in the Paris at War exhibit
A corner of wartime Paris to walk into, at Paris at War.
Recreated 1960s living room in the Johnny Carson exhibit
A 1960s living room — sit down and the TV notices.
View across the turf pitch to the exhibit panels at The Beautiful Game
A turf pitch under the story of wartime soccer, at The Beautiful Game.

Which one?

A screen earns its place when the story is longer than the wall. A flip door earns its place when a fact would be better as a guess. A tactile piece earns its place when the real thing is behind glass. A play structure earns its place when the visitors are four. A room earns its place at the entrance.

Most exhibits we build use two or three of these kinds, not one, and the low-tech ones carry more of the load than clients expect. The one rule we hold to: nothing goes in that the museum can't keep running with the staff and budget it has.

It starts with an idea, and it can come from anywhere. For how that idea becomes a built exhibit, see our process.