Open Forum

Our world is full of touchable things, and people will continue to touch merchandise in stores, playground equipment, school supplies, restaurant wares, etc. People may have greater awareness when we return, but basic human behavior - and the neurological need to touch and explore in order to learn - will not be going away.I know that we need to entertain all possibilities, but I'm disturbed whenever museum people suggest that COVID means "the end of touchable interactives." As museums integrated research from learning experts over the past decades, we increased the use of physical/touchable interactives because we know it increases engagement, enlivens experience, and results in much deeper learning that makes the most of strategies the human brain evolved to take advantage of. 

The impact we should expect on museums is that we now know how critically we need to step up our institutional hygiene. Our cleaning routines and frequencies need to change - and that means labor. In the return phase, we'll need to build in support for cleaning, budget fully for the hours and activities needed, and build it into the daily schedule (even where it impacts public hours and offer, or requires staffing earlier and later than it used to). As folks on my team said when we stepped up the frequency and breadth of cleaning pre-quarantine, "We should have been doing this all along."

It may also be true that we expand the design vocabulary so that we lean less on touchables. Using immersive design and theatrical technique, sound and light, movement and kinetic experience can help us address all the senses in imaginative ways. In places we were using flipbooks, handouts and pushbuttons because they were the most easily evailable delivery tools - instead of the absolute best choice for visitor learning and experience - we should push ourselves to ask whether there are more powerful ways to tell the story.

We should to whatever it takes to make the touch environment safer. But we should not rush to give up learning through touch in museums. For many of our audiences,and many of our sites, touch is the most powerful language we speak. 

Our world is full of touchable things, and people will continue to touch merchandise in stores, playground equipment, school supplies, restaurant wares, etc. People may have greater awareness when we return, but basic human behavior - and the neurological need to touch and explore in order to learn - will not be going away.I know that we need to entertain all possibilities, but I'm disturbed whenever museum people suggest that COVID means "the end of touchable interactives." As museums integrated research from learning experts over the past decades, we increased the use of physical/touchable interactives because we know it increases engagement, enlivens experience, and results in much deeper learning that makes the most of strategies the human brain evolved to take advantage of. 

The impact we should expect on museums is that we now know how critically we need to step up our institutional hygiene. Our cleaning routines and frequencies need to change - and that means labor. In the return phase, we'll need to build in support for cleaning, budget fully for the hours and activities needed, and build it into the daily schedule (even where it impacts public hours and offer, or requires staffing earlier and later than it used to). As folks on my team said when we stepped up the frequency and breadth of cleaning pre-quarantine, "We should have been doing this all along."

It may also be true that we expand the design vocabulary so that we lean less on touchables. Using immersive design and theatrical technique, sound and light, movement and kinetic experience can help us address all the senses in imaginative ways. In places we were using flipbooks, handouts and pushbuttons because they were the most easily evailable delivery tools - instead of the absolute best choice for visitor learning and experience - we should push ourselves to ask whether there are more powerful ways to tell the story.

We should to whatever it takes to make the touch environment safer. But we should not rush to give up learning through touch in museums. For many of our audiences,and many of our sites, touch is the most powerful language we speak. 

Our world is full of touchable things, and people will continue to touch merchandise in stores, playground equipment, school supplies, restaurant wares, etc. People may have greater awareness when we return, but basic human behavior - and the neurological need to touch and explore in order to learn - will not be going away.I know that we need to entertain all possibilities, but I'm disturbed whenever museum people suggest that COVID means "the end of touchable interactives." As museums integrated research from learning experts over the past decades, we increased the use of physical/touchable interactives because we know it increases engagement, enlivens experience, and results in much deeper learning that makes the most of strategies the human brain evolved to take advantage of. 

The impact we should expect on museums is that we now know how critically we need to step up our institutional hygiene. Our cleaning routines and frequencies need to change - and that means labor. In the return phase, we'll need to build in support for cleaning, budget fully for the hours and activities needed, and build it into the daily schedule (even where it impacts public hours and offer, or requires staffing earlier and later than it used to). As folks on my team said when we stepped up the frequency and breadth of cleaning pre-quarantine, "We should have been doing this all along." 

It may also be true that we expand the design vocabulary so that we lean less on touchables. Using immersive design and theatrical technique, sound and light, movement and kinetic experience can help us address all the senses in imaginative ways. In places we were using flipbooks, handouts and pushbuttons because they were the most easily evailable delivery tools - instead of the absolute best choice for visitor learning and experience - we should push ourselves to ask whether there are more powerful ways to tell the story.

We should to whatever it takes to make the touch environment safer. But we should not rush to give up learning through touch in museums. For many of our audiences,and many of our sites, touch is the most powerful language we speak.