The Timeline of a Museum Visit, And How to Take Advantage

I don’t know exactly where it was, and I can’t really vouch for its scientific rigour, but I once read in a book about museum design that people go through three stages whilst visiting a museum.

0 - 30 Minutes: Intense Study

30 - 60 Minutes: General Browse

60 Minutes Plus: Exit Bound

The idea here is relatively simple. For the first half an hour or so the average visitors will intensely scrutinise every case and artefact. Reading every label and display board and pondering their meaning. After this as the mind starts to wander and information overload sets in they’ll take a leisurely stroll around the exhibits looking at the occasional item and reading some of the main displays. Then after about an hour they start gunning for the exit, but taking a circuitous route to make sure they’ve ‘seen’ everything.

Man walking through a gallery, presumably very fast because he’s blurred  (Image from Anna Stills)

As I mentioned I haven't seen the studies for myself that back this theory up, and there are of course a multitude of factors from the museum design to the individual visitors which vary these numbers significantly. However, the general gist passes the smell test and knowing about it I have noticed the experience within myself.

A Three Phase Museum

With this basic framework in mind it would make sense then for us to attempt to try and take advantage of a person’s attention at any given stage. To this I have in mind what I'm terming the first of my 'Big Ideas' the three different phases to a museum visit that can be used.

Phase 1: Intense Study
Any museum should start with a bird’s eye view of the whole of the topic. For a historical museum this could be a general timeline of the covered events. For a specialist museum a general primer to the topic. Or for something like a science discovery centre it could instead be some key ideas.

The main thing is that at the start this is where you have the most amount of attention and interest so you need to take advantage of that. Tell the entire story of the museum in miniature. Ideally the person could just visit this one opening component (probably put together something like an exhibition) and then leave knowing the general gist.

This is a great place to put many of the more interesting, but less visually appealing objects that really help to tell a story but would struggle to grab attention on their own. It is also where you can get away with the information being at its most dense, though this should still be kept to a reasonable level.

Phase 2: General Browse
After a while the visitor will stop reading everything and start looking for things of particular interest. This then is when you can implement the main body of the collection. 

When wandering around they are looking for things to grab their attention and there are two main ways to do this. Firstly either by having something that is particularly eye-catching, perhaps an activity space, a particularly flashy artefact, or something else that otherwise stands out. Secondly, and more importantly in my opinion is for something that links to what they already know. It shouldn’t just be a whole bunch of stuff in cases.

Image of the Pitt Rivers Museum Main Hall which typifies a room full of ‘Stuff’  (Image from Geni)

Here the key idea is to have the collection of exhibits, artefacts, stations, hand-on tables, whatever expanding on the ideas and story that was set up in the initial phase. They are interested in this particular painting because they already know the important battle it depicts and why it was an important victory. Or they’re drawn to the weird mechanical device because they know that it helped spark the industrial revolution or whatever.

Here it is possible to make people interested in objects they would normally pass straight over by having set them up to already have a vague understanding and notion of it’s importance and you are compounding on that knowledge.

Phase 2 in my ideal should be made of a range of self contained little stories which expound on the overarching idea from Phase 1. And sure, not every person will engage with every bit of it but the idea is that people will pick and choose the bits that interest them the most.

Phase 3: Exit Bound
Finally, when people are generally done with the museum but continue through out of politeness, completionism, or just wanting to maximise ticket value this is where you have to hit them with some biggies to squeeze out the last bit of interest.

First impressions might be vital but it’s the last impressions that people walk away with so I think it’s important to have people go out on a high note, but this can be difficult when this is where people are least engaged.

The simplest way to do this is to physically have the last space be something a bit different and a big heavy hitter. Perhaps something more experiential like an immersive space that recaps the museum as a whole. Something fun and practical that breaks up the experience with something of a ‘change is as good as a rest’ mentality would also work here. Think like grabbing people's attention in Phase 2 but turned up to 11.

For a more traditional and easier way of going about this however is this is where you can crack out your heavy hitter artefacts. This is the perfect place to put your Hero Item[s] (The hero item being the most interesting or famous object, and typically the one highlighted in marketing), everyone is going to leave happy if the last thing they see is the Mona Lisa

A very crowded Mona Lisa Gallery (Image from Context Travel)

An Unrevolutionary Idea

These phases of mine are not revolutionary. Many of the better and well thought out museums already adhere to some kind of variation on this principle but it would not surprise you how many utterly fail to come close.

The difficulty here then is that you perhaps start a museum by being pushed too quickly out into rooms of interesting items but with little context. Here you can waste the initial burst studying some perfectly fine but not overly stimulating objects. Then the wandering phase can quickly become dull as you wander down yet another row of cases that has more stuff in it. This then transitions more quickly into phase 3 as enthusiasm ebbs and you start to wonder where you’re going to go for lunch.

As I said, this is not a brand new idea, but I would like to see it formalised and practiced some more. I know that there is significant academic study on museum visitor experience, but I have struggled to find anything that leans into this idea of a holistic visit as it typically looks at more moment to moment interactions. (Once again if anyone is looking to fund some research I'm all ears). And I admit that it is entirely possible that this is already the Dr Soandso Museum method, but if it is I’m yet to find it.

We also need to consider the practicalities of such a setup. This is an idea that really only fits mid-sized museums. A museum that is small enough to only take 30-45 minutes or perhaps less doesn’t need to consider this in quite the same way. And a national scale museum that could take many many hours and will realistically only have visitors selecting parts of the museum for serious consideration will need to work differently (though perhaps each part can use this idea on a smaller scale).

It also relies somewhat on a largely linear physical space, which is not always possible. There is an implied starting, and ending point that isn’t always present and careful consideration of how the collection might be able to fit such a structure. A more general and wide ranging museum might not be able to so neatly find key ideas that can cover the whole thing.

Still, I think that the phases are both highly intuitive and also reasonably practical to consider and work with to a greater or lesser extent. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to work them into something a bit more evidence based and directly applicable but I’m still confident that it remains immediately useful.

Museum 200: The People’s Museum

I consider late 2021 as the start of my big museum journey. Whilst it was a 2020 trip to Paris that inspired it being trapped in the house for the better part of a year and a half really kickstarted the desire. This was not least to look at how the museum landscape changed as it came out of the pandemic.

Since then I kept track of all the museums, galleries, cultural sites and other ‘learning spaces’ that I've visited and I noticed that I was nearing two hundred different places. I wondered for a while if I should try and make something of it. Go to a particularly grand, or meaningful museum? (Incidentally Museum 100 was the Checkpoint Charlie Museum that I've already complained about in my round up of Berlin). However, in the end it happened like so many of the museum visits do. With me grabbing the opportunity whilst I was nearby.

Last week I was in Manchester for a scientific conference. Being there early to set up the stall a day ahead of time and with nothing of interest happening until the evening I took the spare hour or so to check into my hotel and to visit the only museum in Manchester I hadn’t ever been to. The People’s History Museum.

Scene Setting Display at the People’s Museum (Own Image)

Democracy in Action

The People’s History Museum is the national museum of democracy and across its two floors it follows a broadly linear timeline from around 200 years ago to about the 80s on how British democracy and people power has changed and increased over that time.

It hits all the major note, general suffrage, women's suffrage, labour movements, the rise of the Labour government and even many modern elements such as the Black Lives Matter Protests and Climate Strikes, or even the local Deliveroo Worker Strikes

Display Case of Items from Protests Across Manchester (Own Image)

The galleries show all the hallmarks of a well put together modern museum. There are clear displays with easy to digest text. There are a range of different types of displays and exhibits. Offering content that’s suitable for different ages as well as good discussion points to have with children and hands-on activities.

Perhaps one of few issues with the People’s Museum is that whilst the timeline helps show a clear arrow of progress though as with these things they don’t perfectly line up and different displays can jump around in time a little. Democracy is such a broad idea that it can be difficult to focus on any individual event and often there are scant details

Children’s Activity Area within the Museum (Own Image)

The inclusion of broken up spaces helps direct the flow of visitors and lets the space feel bigger than it is. There is a break between more cluttered spaces of small objects and large displays of the grand union banners. It’s a museum that does everything right whilst engaging with a difficult and somewhat intangible topic. And yet, I find myself with very little to say.

After 199 Museums they all get a bit samey

The People’s Museum is a good museum, maybe even a great one, but it did little to excite me. This however is probably a ‘me’ problem and this is as good a time as any to accept probably my most obvious bias towards novelty.

It should be fairly obvious but at 200 museums in about three and a half years I am not a typical museum visitor. And the unspectacular truth is that museums exist on a continuum and most of them are decidedly fine. They’re perfectly okay. They do the job competently but not spectacularly. I want to make it clear that I genuinely believe that’s not only always going to be the case but that it’s a totally legitimate way to run a museum.

I imagine that in these blog posts I will deride things that are mostly just fine. But a dozen perfectly fine museums are better than just one or two spectacular ones. This blog exists to help me formulise and let out some of my ideas and thoughts on how we can push museums to be better, but the real world requires resources, time, and people which just isn’t always possible.

When I'd spoken to people about this project they'd asked if I was going to ‘review’ museums. But I'm not sure that giving museums a score and a tagine is a great idea (though if someone is willing to pay me, all these morals are able to go right out the window). I had a brief dalliance with video game reviewing for a publication some years back and going through a stream of releases each week. I quickly discovered that most games that came out were perfectly fine, and I had little to write about for most of them because they were just a version of something else. I found it neither fun or interesting and the writing itself was dull. I fear similar would happen if I simply reviewed each place I visited.

Anti-Suffragette Propaganda in The People’s History Museum Exterior which was maybe the only thing that really caught my attention (Own Image)

There are very few museums that I visit that I genuinely wouldn't recommend a visit to. The People's History Museum gets a recommendation from me either as part of a family trip, or somewhere to go if you've got some spare time in Manchester. They even seem to have a fairly robust academic program for scholars and even an events program, and if I lived there I would probably engage further. I could wax lyrical about many of the great things that it’s doing with its space and its collection but it would be more in the context of how museums can or should be doing it.

This then is a warning about my opinions within this blog. Here I look towards the new and original. What we can do to make places better rather than just strictly looking at what exists. Focusing on the flaws and the new rather than those that are doing the hard graft, and doing it well. Because whilst I would like to pretend I can champion everything that is good despite the fact that I feel my opinion has now solidified to the People’s History Museum being a genuinely excellent museum, for me it’s just one of a sea of others like it and the only standout feature is that it’s Museum 200.

The Best and Worst Museum in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a city with a particularly strong tourist culture. Known for its red light district and easy access to cannabis it might surprise many of its visitors that it’s also got a pretty great collection of museums.

The Best - Micropia

For me a science museum is always a challenging prospect. As a science communicator myself I'm always thinking about what I would do to improve the place (even more than I normally do) which means that it's rare that they'll get a fair shake. That's why, having worked with so many over the years, that it's a real surprise when one manages to genuinely delight me. Micropia is a museum centred around the understanding of the tiny fungus, bacteria, and pathogens that make up our world whether we know it or not. Opening in 2014 it has all the hallmarks of something new and with not insignificant funding. Shiny graphics, excellent equipment, and a clear message. Featuring a clean design with carefully chosen artefacts the only part that you can’t fully take in is deliberately the microbe wall. A selection of (presumably faked or preserved) petri dishes that make a stunning display showing the wide variety of different kinds of microbes that exist on a human visible scale.

One part of the Microbe Wall (Picture From Micropia)

The rest of the museum is significantly more deliberate and focused being made largely of a series of stations set up as scientific benches bubbling away presumably providing the perfect environment for a chosen kind of microbe. The display tells you a bit about them, what they do, where they can be found and then a microscope lets you see them for yourself, live and in the tiny flesh.

Whilst each of these stations are largely self contained the museum overall uses projected displays and sculptures to tie them all together into a grand web of life trying to show how all of these microorganisms live together and are necessary.

Image of tree of life projection which moves around consolidating previous ideas (Picture From Micropia)

Following on from the main exhibition is a downstairs lab like area with a variety of hands-on activities built up like a science lab. Encouraging children to engage with some microbe themed tasks.

Tackling Difficult Topics

From such a description it might not be obvious as to why I've picked it as the best museum. Its design and form is a replication of many other science centres the world over so long as they are new and big enough. What does this do to stand above the crowd?

In my opinion it comes from its focus on a fairly small (pun intended) topic. Whilst microbe science is a huge field any typical science centre might only dedicate a small space to it, maybe a room at the utmost. Here instead a whole museum is dedicated to the topic whilst continuing to deliver on quality and understandability, and this is no trivial feat. 

This is something of a theme I personally find with small vs big museums. The big museums can pick and choose only the best and easiest to engage with parts of topic but with something more dedicated there has to be significant effort. There’s a reason Micropia can market itself as ‘The only museum entirely dedicated to microbes’.

Stamps for Success

Beyond its excellent design, hands-on activities, and laser focus the standout feature of Micropia is its stamp card. Perhaps taking inspiration from the Japanese Stamp Rally this was your museum map and guide which had on its front a blank circle. Then when going to the various exhibit stations around the museum there were slots where you could push your card into the slot and get it stamped with a nice little picture of whatever the thing was.

Picture of a Near Complete Stamp Card (Picture From Trip Advisor)

I am a big believer in doing things to engage children with museums and I think that something like this, a broad freeform activity that encourages them to be observant and actively engage is perfect.

Of course, something like this can also appeal to adults and it became my immediate mission to complete my own stamp card. Sadly some of the stamps were missing (presumably for repair) which meant the card could not be completed. This was something of a killjoy and would also presumably get worse as the exhibits age so is perhaps something that needs additional support.

The Worst - Sexmuesum Amsterdam

It will probably not surprise you that a sex museum isn't great. There can be plenty of hand wringing about how our modern world deals with one of the most basic facts of life and especially sex workers who remain perhaps the most marginalised and exploited profession in the world despite its ubiquity across time and place.

However, in recent years at least some of the stigma has started to be lost. And places like London's Vagina Museum have shown that it is possible to take a more mature and informative stance when it comes to topics that turns most to giggles, some to shy away, and others still to fits of outrage.

Where better then, for something like this, than Amsterdam. The city where sex is visibly available for purchase down its main tourist route. Was I expecting something thought provoking and profound from Sex Museum Amsterdam then? No. Was I disappointed all the same? Yes.

One of the few images I can put up of the Sex Museum for obvious reasons (Picture From Peder Sanholm)

I will perhaps post at some other point about things that purport to be museums but are nothing of the sort, but this straddles the line. It is clear almost immediately that this is a place with no desire to inform or inspire. But rather to titillate.

Now I don't want to come across as puritanical, I enjoy a knob joke as much as the next person. But when there are cabinets of different penises, from stone statues to wooden carvings with no context aside from a date and place of origin the gag quickly wears thin.

There are of course many great stories about sex, and cultural responses to it even if you’re just looking for a funny story. What about when Pope Pius IX ordered in 1857 that all the penises on vatican statues should be chopped off, or the Japanese Festival of the Steel Phallus, or even the development of art and rituals in Indian Pleasure palaces? All of which can offer an interesting insight into the world which still shows you a funny statue of a cock.

A Tourist Attraction

The simple answer here is that this isn't actually supposed to be a museum at all.  This is a tourist attraction akin to a fairground or river cruise, to be enjoyed for a laugh when it's a bit too early to be doing any serious drinking on a lads weekend away or a hen do.

It was in this spirit certainly that I got the most enjoyment out of it. Being stuck behind a small group of middle aged ladies from Liverpool with an infectious laugh who giggled with delight at the robot flasher, or the butt sculpture on the staircase that blew air at you as you walked past. Occasionally sharing their own stories such as how the weirdly shaped penis sculpture reminded her of dodgy Darren from number 36.

Any attempt to engage with the artefacts or the stories behind them constantly pays second service to another attempt to shock. The whole effect being that there is no real interest to be found, but that equally it is one of the furthest things from erotic I've ever come across. The closest comparison I can think of is to my impression of a Victorian sideshow, a cheap laugh and thrill for all the ladies and gentlemen. And this is perhaps exactly all it is trying to be.

The Responsibility of  a Platform

I don't believe however, that this is a total defence against criticism of it as a museum, especially when it uses the word in its title. Even within Amsterdam itself there are other museums that use the same draw of sex and drugs to bring people in but still provide a compelling story. 

The Red Light Secrets: Museum of Prostitution for example, whilst due plenty of criticism itself, pulls in a tourist to the other side of the red curtain with promises of tales of kink and depravity (which it does deliver on) but it also uses its platform to talk about the abuse many of the sex workers face, the constant government pressures on the industry and much else besides.

It is for this reason that the Sex Museum is the worst in Amsterdam. It has a platform and an audience (it was probably the most crowded place I visited) but it does nothing with it.

Lessons Learned from Amsterdam

I don’t want to fully commit to trying to include a lesson in comparing the best of the worst of any given place I visit, but much as in Berlin there is a direct comparison to be made. Here Micropia offers a generally less interesting topic well and the Sex Museum Amsterdam an interesting topic poorly.

This I think then demonstrates another one of my foundational principles for museums. There is no topic that could not make its own museum, but nor is there any topic that can wholly carry a museum. There are some topics which are of course easier to work with and more immediately gripping. But with the right stories and an intelligent team of designers anything can be made into a great experience.