Why museums keep asking for touchscreens (and what to ship instead)

A museum brief that opens with "we want a touchscreen" is, nine times out of ten, a museum brief that should open with "we want visitors to slow down at this case."

Touchscreens aren't an experience. They're a delivery mechanism for an experience. They make sense when the content is genuinely interactive — assembly, comparison, configuration. They are wasted on text panels that someone could have made into a poster.

When we ship NCMA's samurai armour exhibit, we didn't start with the screen. We started with the question: what should a visitor know that they wouldn't know from looking at the armour? Then we worked backward to the smallest interaction that taught it.

If your exhibit team is asking for a touchscreen, ask back: what's the action you want the visitor to perform that they can't perform with their eyes alone? If you have an answer, build that action. If you don't, save the budget for a better label.