Museum Exhibit User Experience Toolkit

The Museum Exhibit User Experience Toolkit is a how-to guide for creating meaningful and impactful visitor experiences by placing audiences at the heart of the conceptualisation, evaluation, and development of museum exhibits and exhibitions.

Based on ideas from the User Experience sector, the MEUX Toolkit (pronounced ‘muse’) brings the success of UX to the cultural heritage sector in a comprehensive practitioner’s handbook. The MEUX Toolkit incorporates a suite of methods, approaches, and guides for conceptualising, evaluating, and developing Museum Exhibit User Experiences.

In this book, a conceptual MEUX Model provides a theoretical understanding of how museums and visitors interact with each other at exhibits, whether they be permanent exhibits or temporary exhibitions, from individual glass case displays to full immersive experiences. The comprehensive MEUX Evaluation Methods Suite provides museum professionals with a series of off-the-shelf surveys and interview questions for capturing information on museum—visitor interactions in real world settings. Subsequent analysis of this data using the book’s user-friendly MEUX Analysis Process enables readers to develop a detailed understanding of the experience of their audiences and the impact of their exhibits and exhibitions. This standardised approach to evaluation enables readers to draw direct comparisons between different exhibits, whether at the same museum and or at different museums. Finally, the book provides museum professionals with the MEUX Approach to exhibit development, consisting of an interpretation guide, two rounds of formative evaluation, and numerous approaches to development and decision-making. Readers can put the insights gleaned from their audience research into practice and develop effective exhibitions which meet the needs of both visitors and organisations.

This guide is a practical resource for cultural organisations to deliver meaningful and impactful visitor experiences, enabling museum professionals to understand audiences on a detailed level, assess the direct impact different exhibits have on visitors, and empower practitioners to develop new exhibits that are better able to deliver desired visitor experiences, however these are defined. The book will be an indispensable guide for a wide range of professionals working in the museums and heritage sector, as well as students in museum studies.

Dr Ellie King completed her PhD at the University of Warwick and Oxford University Museum of Natural History between 2019 and 2024, where she developed the Museum Exhibit User Experience Toolkit. She is the Director of Crown Cultures, working as a consultant across the museums, heritage, and cultural sectors across the UK and internationally, to support organisations to develop and evaluate meaningful and impactful visitor experiences. She lectures in public engagement and evaluation, and regularly publishes research papers on her work.