Interactive exhibitions design – what can we learn from cultural heritage professionals?

Within cultural heritage, curators, exhibition designers and other professionals are increasingly involved in the design of exhibits that make use of interactive digital technologies to engage visitors in novel ways. While a body of work on the design and evaluation of interactive exhibitions exists in HCI and Interaction Design, little research has been conducted thus far on understanding how cultural heritage professionals engage in the design of interactive exhibitions in terms of their attitudes, process, expectations and understandings of technology. In this paper, we present the results from an interview study involving cultural heritage professionals and aimed at understanding their involvement in designing interactive exhibitions. Our findings could provide the HCI community with a better understanding of the strategies and aspirations of domain professionals regarding interactive exhibitions, and to identify new ways to engage with them - particularly as these professionals’ knowledge and understanding of interactive digital technologies becomes more advanced.