Museum Interactives: Go Beyond the Screen
By The Next/Now Experience Design Team
June 26, 2025
1 | Screen-Fatigue Is Real
The average visitor spends 7–10 hours a day on phones and laptops. When they enter a gallery, more glass and blue-light glare can feel like just another app session. MuseumNext recently noted a growing backlash against “tablet walls” that simply replicate web pages on a larger surface. Innovators are instead “breaking the mold by combining the tactile with the virtual.”
2 | Embodied, Multisensory Experiences Drive Deeper Learning
A 2024 review of multisensory museum experiences concluded that layering sound, haptics, and spatial media significantly boosts recall and emotional connection compared with visual-only displays.
Likewise, Cleveland Museum of Art’s ArtLens Gallery found that after introducing gesture-based and full-body interactives, the average time visitors spent looking at an artwork jumped from 2–3 seconds to 15 seconds—an astonishing 5-fold increase. 76 % of surveyed guests said the gallery “enhanced” their overall visit.
3 | Proof in the Foot Traffic
Immersive shows such as Beyond Van Gogh & Beyond Monet continue to sell out nationwide, wrapping 360° projection, soundscapes, and scent cues around familiar paintings. The Hartford run alone is drawing thousands weekly—at $29.50 a ticket.
Meanwhile, teamLab’s borderless installations reported multi-million visitor counts before relocating from Tokyo to new sites in Singapore and Jeddah, showing global appetite for room-scale digital art.
4 | Accessibility & Inclusion Improve
Going beyond glass isn’t just flash; it can broaden access. Audio-AR research at the UK’s National Science & Media Museum demonstrated that attaching spatial sound to physical artifacts helped visitors with low vision explore more confidently and stay longer.
Design Principles for Museums Ready to Leap
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Story First, Tech Second
Start with the emotion or insight you want visitors to feel; choose hardware only if it serves that narrative.
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Layer, Don’t Replace
Screens can still play a role—just use them as gateways to full-room experiences, not endpoints.
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Design for All Bodies
Multisensory means considering height, mobility, hearing, and sight variations from day one.
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Measure Beyond Clicks
Track dwell time, repeat visitation, and social sharing to prove ROI, as CMA did with ArtLens.
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Plan for Longevity & Maintenance
Projection surfaces, sensors, and physical props need robust ops plans—budget for them early.
Design Principles for Museums Ready to Leap
-
Story First, Tech Second
Start with the emotion or insight you want visitors to feel; choose hardware only if it serves that narrative.
-
Layer, Don’t Replace
Screens can still play a role—just use them as gateways to full-room experiences, not endpoints.
-
Design for All Bodies
Multisensory means considering height, mobility, hearing, and sight variations from day one.
-
Measure Beyond Clicks
Track dwell time, repeat visitation, and social sharing to prove ROI, as CMA did with ArtLens.
-
Plan for Longevity & Maintenance
Projection surfaces, sensors, and physical props need robust ops plans—budget for them early.
The Bottom Line
When museums move past glass screens into spatial, multisensory storytelling, they achieve three wins:
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Deeper Engagement – Visitors spend more time, remember more, and talk about it afterward.
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Broader Access – A mix of sound, motion, and tactility welcomes people of varied abilities and learning styles.
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Revenue & Reach – Immersive ticketed exhibits and share-friendly moments drive both onsite attendance and online buzz.
As a studio that’s built large-scale interactives for institutions from DARPA to Trek—and plenty of museums in between—we’ve seen these benefits firsthand. If you’re ready to let your collection spill out of the frame and into the room, let’s chat about crafting experiences that visitors can feel, not just view.
Because the future of museum engagement isn’t on a screen—it’s all around us.