The other day, as I was trawling the net for images of the good, bad and ugly of museum lobbies and signage (for an upcoming presentation), I found this excellent blog – Please Be Seated: visitor comfort in museums and other public places. It is hosted by Beth Katz and Steve Tokar, who set out to:
. . . promote and discuss the idea that comfortable museum visitors are happy visitors who are more likely to enjoy their visits and more likely to return. Thus, museums and other public spaces are better and more successful in all ways when they provide basic comforts including (but not limited to) good seating, readable signs and labels, lounges and other areas of visual and psychic relief, and navigable restrooms. Our intent is to analyze museums and other public spaces in terms of comfort, a word we use inclusively to mean visual, aural, intellectual, and emotional comfort as well as physical comfort for a wide range of humans of all ages and types.
The blog is well illustrated with a wide range of examples (it looks like they are all US examples, but the general idea is universal) and covers topics such as lobby layouts, orientation signage, disabled access and public spaces. As I touched upon recently, I believe attention to these details can make or break a museum visit.
The Please Be Seated blog is one for the bookmarks list of anyone interested in the visitor experience.