As lockdown lifts, how can our industry adapt?

As attractions, zoos, museums and science centres begin to open their doors once again, we thought we would share some of our experience to help you provide a safe and enjoyable experience for your visitors. We have previously worked with hospitals to design develop and install interactive waiting areas for their younger patients, during this journey we learnt a thing or two about infection control and interactive exhibits.

For those of you planning new hands-on exhibitions;

• Work with your design team to plan infection control from day one of the design process, the exhibits will need to be able to cope with rigorous cleaning so the design needs to facilitate this through ease of access for the cleaning team and to be free of dust traps and joints which can harbour bacteria. Hard fact of life, if its not easy to clean – it probably won’t get cleaned….
• There are often a variety of interpretation options available for each theme or object in the gallery. Some options will be inherently better in terms of infection-control than others, let this be one of the factors you consider when making these decisions.
• Incorporate infection control considerations into design risk assessments, and let these risk assessments drive your designs.
• Select non-porous, and abrasion-resistant materials, or materials where scratches can easily be polished out to avoid them becoming dirty. Solid surface, although more expensive initially, is extremely robust and can be jointed to create a hard-wearing seamless finish, which can be repaired invisibly, and wiped down with extremely harsh chemicals to kill bacteria.
• Avoid loose parts, slots, recesses, feely boxes and heavily textured surfaces.
• Consider the nature of the interaction – do shared headphones need to be used or can sound be transmitted another way? Do touch models need to be physically activated or could the activity be triggered by a proximity switch?
• Consider the reality of the exhibition’s maintenance long term – will your team still be willing and able to undertake deep cleaning of complex interactive exhibits, multiple times a day, in 12 months’ time? If not, keep the interactive elements simple, low tech and easy to maintain.

For those of you re-opening existing hands-on exhibitions;

• Risk assess and evaluate each hands on exhibit as a starting point, look at creative solutions to enable access to as many exhibits as possible, speak to your suppliers for advice.
• Control the number of visitors in the exhibition at any time, time arrivals and set dwell times.
• Ask visitors to respect social distancing within the gallery environment, establish clear, intuitive one-way routes.
• Outline the expectations of visitor behaviour and facilities available on the website and at arrival points.
• Ensure all visitors have access to hand sanitiser throughout their journey in your exhibition, set the tone by dispensing on admission.
• Touchscreens can be made safer by ensuring each visitor has an individual stylus or pen to use instead of a finger.
• Consider updating the materials used to house the exhibits to ensure they are fit for purpose.
• Remove all dust traps.
• Consider the materials used in the interactive, the original design priority may (for example) have been for a pull rope to be as authentic to the original period style rope as possible – now, you may want to consider covering that rope with a plastic shrink wrap.
• Open display, touchable models – if they have fiddly details which are hard to keep clean, a solution may be a covering case which whilst not ideal, means they are safe and can be kept in the gallery.
• Consider plexi glass table dividers for group activity tables.
• Have plenty of PPE (gloves, masks, visors as appropriate) available, but remember allergies!

Don’t forget about inclusivity and accessibility – consider all of your visitors needs when making adjustments to ensure any measures you put in place work for everybody.

Our maintenance team has been very busy helping our clients prepare for their big re-openings. As galleries have been closed for 3 months there will inevitably be issues with some exhibits when they are turned back on – so don’t leave it until the day before opening to test your interactive exhibits.

Don’t forget about inclusivity and accessibility – consider all of your visitors needs when making adjustments to ensure any measures you put in place work for everybody.

Finally, have confidence! It is worth remembering that with the best will in the world, children’s galleries are a hot bed of bacteria at the best of times, you are all experienced at keeping galleries super clean and visitors safe. Cleaning procedures will have to become more rigorous and regular but its no bad thing for your visitors to see your teams deep cleaning the areas, it should instil confidence and reassure visitors that their safety is as important to you as that of your teams.

If we can help at all with advice, maintenance or changes to exhibits – please just get in touch.