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If your exhibit includes anything that lights up, spins, lifts, pushes, pulls, turns, or responds when a visitor interacts with it – our Industrial Design team is making sure it works (and keeps working).

Welcome to the world of interactives—where user-centered design meets industrial-strength engineering.

Interactive exhibits are one of the most effective ways to reach visitors, especially kinesthetic learners who engage best through touch and movement. Whether it’s a tactile feature, an electro-mechanical device, or a digital media experience, these elements invite curiosity and hands-on discovery in ways that traditional labels and displays sometimes can’t.

Interactives are typically some of the most complex and costly elements of an exhibition. They often require:

• Prototyping to validate concepts and eliminate failure points
• Custom parts, not off-the-shelf solutions
• Heavy-duty construction using industrial-grade components

They also take more time to program, test, and verify. Even after installation, they’ll need routine inspection and maintenance. Plus, let’s be honest, visitors often use exhibits in creative, unintended (and unexpected) ways, which can be very hard on moving parts. Engaging, robust interactives don’t just happen – they’re engineered with intent.

Matching the Delivery System 

One of the biggest things I cover with clients is that it’s important to match the delivery system to the content and tone of the exhibition. The appearance and function of an interactive influence how a visitor engages with it.  An exhibit that looks more historic or scientific can promote more thoughtful behavior and careful interaction.

One that looks like playground equipment or a carnival game will invite more playful and physical behavior. Neither is wrong, but you need to decide what tone fits your exhibition best.

“Decoupling” Makes Things Last Longer

A good way to improve the reliability of an interactive exhibit is what I refer to as decoupling. That means separating the visitor’s physical input from the mechanical or digital output to reduce stress on the system.

Here’s a quick example:

Let’s say you have an exhibit where the visitor pulls on a rope to draw water out of a well. The goal is to demonstrate how much work it is to fetch a day’s worth of water for a whole family, so there is a display to signal when enough water has been drawn.

If the rope being pulled was directly triggering the counting display, all the force of the visitors would be inflicted on that device. A better approach is for the rope to be on a pulley, which is connected to a rotary encoder. The encoder sends a signal to a computer based on the number of turns (how much rope is pulled), and the computer drives the display to show how much water has been drawn.

With the right programming, the experience for the visitor will seem very direct, as though their effort is causing the action of the display.

It’s just one of many ways we think about longevity when designing interactives.

At the end of the day, great interactives are equal parts imagination and engineering. They’re fun, functional, durable, and meaningful – and when they’re done right, they can become the centerpiece of an entire gallery.

If you’re thinking about incorporating interactives into your next project, or if you’re struggling with one that just doesn’t hold up, I’m always happy to be a resource. There’s nothing I love more than turning a good idea into a great (and bulletproof) experience.