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Engaging parents and children in Museon

Museon is a museum for science and culture. Its mission is to holistically educate the broad public on the relationship between nature and culture and is specifically targeted at families with children as well as at school groups. It was observed that the majority of families visiting the museum have children aged 3-12 years. In designing museum exhibits, it is difficult to address all family members at their own level of understanding. Especially addressing the intellectual needs of the youngest part of the target group proves to be a challenge, often resulting in disruptions to family communication.

A proposal was designed for Museon’s food exhibition, in which different levels of information communication were created to trigger learning and communication across all family members. A deliberate effort was made to include the needs of young children (aged 3-5) in the learning interaction, in order to promote active family communication. A prototype was built and an observational study was conducted in the museum, with children and their families as users and focusing on interactions while using the prototype.

The results showed that the design successfully stimulated families with children to engage in interactions and discussions together. Engaging younger children however, still proved to be less optimal as these were still over challenged due to the installation being too textual. The results of the test led to clear recommendations for how to further improve the design for addressing also the needs of younger children.

(Project: Graduation project Sophie Crull. Supervisors: Henri Christiaans, Arnold Vermeeren, Judith Aertsen (Museon)

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