Digital Exhibit Labels in Museums: Promoting Visitor Engagement with Cultural Artifacts

How can we use interactive displays in museums to help visitors appreciate authentic objects and artifacts that they can’t otherwise touch or manipulate? This paper shares results from a design-based research study on the use of interactive displays to help visitors learn about artifacts in an exhibit on the history and culture of China. To explore the potential afforded by these displays, we unobtrusively video recorded 834 museum visitor groups who stopped in front of one collection of objects. Drawing on cognitive models of curiosity, we tested three redesigns of this display, each focusing on a different strategy to spark visitor curiosity, interest, and engagement. To understand the relative effectiveness of these designs, we analyzed visitor interaction and conversation. Our results uncovered significant differences across the conditions suggesting implications for the use of such technology in museums.