At its best museum text has the power to talk directly to audiences, dissect complex issues, get to the heart of a story and embody an inclusive and lively tone of voice. At its worst museum text is dense, hard to unpick, condescending, unwittingly pejorative and elitist.
“We’ve all seen the dogged efforts of a visitor muttering words under their breath as they read. Badly written text excludes people or simply bores them. The message and voice are loud and clear: ‘This museum is not for you’,” writes Lucy Harland in an article on the importance of tone of voice in museums.
While it is OK for museums to be authoritative, they shouldn’t come across as though they are trying to “guard what they have got and keep in for themselves”, says Rebecca Mileham, a freelance writer that specialises in museum interpretation.
Effective museum text is underpinned with a strong message and a clear understanding of the target audience. “I think you have to do a piece of really hard thinking when you start an exhibition writing project about what your message is and how you want it to change visitors’ lives,” says Mileham.
Perhaps understandably, many museums will want to write text for the widest possible audience, but a more targeted approach is often recommended for specific projects and exhibitions. It is, however, possible to create layers of text to cater for different audiences in a gallery or space designed to cater to the needs of young families. “Have gallery text aimed at the audience but you can obviously intervene with other things for other audiences,” says Mileham.
Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse in Norfolk uses a layered approach to introduce different themes on a topic and address the needs of young families (which account for the largest part of its visitor base), as well as heritage enthusiasts looking for more detail. The heritage site also uses touchscreens, exhibition guides and a tablet information tool to help to meet visitors’ different levels of interest.
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has taken this principle one step further by delivering content on a wearable watch-like device, which will provide short-form content on its paintings.
It is also hoped that the watches, which the foundation began piloting in November, will prevent bottlenecks in the galleries that currently arise from visitors standing in the same place for long periods of time as they listen to audio guides.
Visitors wearing the watches will be able to save one-sentence stories on their favourite paintings as they go through the gallery. These can then be transferred to their mobile phone, where they can access more detailed information on the paintings to read in their own time.
“The wearable is just the beginning of a path that will wind its way through experimental content delivery in the most mobile form and how it will interface with longer form content in the galleries and post-visit,” says Shelley Bernstein, the deputy director of digital initiatives and chief experience officer at the Barnes Foundation.
To some extent delivering content on new technology reinvents the rulebook for text length and style. However, the general rule of thumb for text panels is between 30 and 50 words per paragraph.
“Sometimes I’m looking at a text in an exhibition and I’m thinking that with more discipline and thinking even harder about the ideas that are in it, these ideas could have been expressed more succinctly,” says Mileham.
Another factor that museums need to consider is whether the text used on signage in the café or on the website jars with the values or the key messages reflected in exhibitions.
“Some signage can be recognised as being hilariously authoritarian and almost dismissive to some visitors,” says Mileham.
A consistent approach to text is particularly important for museums that are rebranding or repurposing their content to reach new audiences. Many institutions use style guides to help them create a single voice and style – a point elaborated on by Emma Harper, the exhibition officer at London’s new Postal Museum, which is overseen by the Postal Heritage Trust and will open in 2017.
“We use first-person quotes but wanted most of the rest of the text we wanted to be in the second person to make it quite inclusive. We asked people questions rather than being too authoritative - 'have you ever run to post a letter?' Previously, the text was more descriptive rather than inclusive," says Harper.
"It wasn't necessarily exclusive but it could use quite technical language, particularly when talking about some of the philatelic processes. In the new text we tried not to use too many acronyms or complicated words.”
Learn about the latest techniques and approaches used to create emotive and attention-grabbing museum text at the Museums Association’s one-day seminar, What’s the Story, which take place at MShed in Bristol on 24 January 2017.
“We’ve all seen the dogged efforts of a visitor muttering words under their breath as they read. Badly written text excludes people or simply bores them. The message and voice are loud and clear: ‘This museum is not for you’,” writes Lucy Harland in an article on the importance of tone of voice in museums.
While it is OK for museums to be authoritative, they shouldn’t come across as though they are trying to “guard what they have got and keep in for themselves”, says Rebecca Mileham, a freelance writer that specialises in museum interpretation.
Effective museum text is underpinned with a strong message and a clear understanding of the target audience. “I think you have to do a piece of really hard thinking when you start an exhibition writing project about what your message is and how you want it to change visitors’ lives,” says Mileham.
Perhaps understandably, many museums will want to write text for the widest possible audience, but a more targeted approach is often recommended for specific projects and exhibitions. It is, however, possible to create layers of text to cater for different audiences in a gallery or space designed to cater to the needs of young families. “Have gallery text aimed at the audience but you can obviously intervene with other things for other audiences,” says Mileham.
Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse in Norfolk uses a layered approach to introduce different themes on a topic and address the needs of young families (which account for the largest part of its visitor base), as well as heritage enthusiasts looking for more detail. The heritage site also uses touchscreens, exhibition guides and a tablet information tool to help to meet visitors’ different levels of interest.
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has taken this principle one step further by delivering content on a wearable watch-like device, which will provide short-form content on its paintings.
It is also hoped that the watches, which the foundation began piloting in November, will prevent bottlenecks in the galleries that currently arise from visitors standing in the same place for long periods of time as they listen to audio guides.
Visitors wearing the watches will be able to save one-sentence stories on their favourite paintings as they go through the gallery. These can then be transferred to their mobile phone, where they can access more detailed information on the paintings to read in their own time.
“The wearable is just the beginning of a path that will wind its way through experimental content delivery in the most mobile form and how it will interface with longer form content in the galleries and post-visit,” says Shelley Bernstein, the deputy director of digital initiatives and chief experience officer at the Barnes Foundation.
To some extent delivering content on new technology reinvents the rulebook for text length and style. However, the general rule of thumb for text panels is between 30 and 50 words per paragraph.
“Sometimes I’m looking at a text in an exhibition and I’m thinking that with more discipline and thinking even harder about the ideas that are in it, these ideas could have been expressed more succinctly,” says Mileham.
Another factor that museums need to consider is whether the text used on signage in the café or on the website jars with the values or the key messages reflected in exhibitions.
“Some signage can be recognised as being hilariously authoritarian and almost dismissive to some visitors,” says Mileham.
A consistent approach to text is particularly important for museums that are rebranding or repurposing their content to reach new audiences. Many institutions use style guides to help them create a single voice and style – a point elaborated on by Emma Harper, the exhibition officer at London’s new Postal Museum, which is overseen by the Postal Heritage Trust and will open in 2017.
“We use first-person quotes but wanted most of the rest of the text we wanted to be in the second person to make it quite inclusive. We asked people questions rather than being too authoritative - 'have you ever run to post a letter?' Previously, the text was more descriptive rather than inclusive," says Harper.
"It wasn't necessarily exclusive but it could use quite technical language, particularly when talking about some of the philatelic processes. In the new text we tried not to use too many acronyms or complicated words.”
Learn about the latest techniques and approaches used to create emotive and attention-grabbing museum text at the Museums Association’s one-day seminar, What’s the Story, which take place at MShed in Bristol on 24 January 2017.