Culture, Tourism & Experiences / Explore
Culture, Tourism & Experiences / Explore
Interactive Space Design
Guidelines, design review, and training for institutions planning an interactive installation: the visitor’s mind is the first surface to design for.
01 / The Solution
Before projectors and sensors, an installation is a load on attention and memory. Many interactive spaces fail not because the technology is weak but because two animated surfaces compete for one focus of attention, a wall offers twelve choices where five would do, or the text takes longer to read than the visitor stays.
Interactive Space Design makes the method behind e-REAL installations available to institutions that are planning, commissioning, or reviewing their own. It rests on the reference guide developed by e-REAL Labs with Centro Studi Logos and the University of Bologna, and on the book Design per spazi informativi interattivi (FrancoAngeli): perception, attention, and memory; body and space; the four phases of an interactive station, from ambient display to personal interaction; spatial configurations; visual ergonomics of content; accessibility and inclusion; interaction logics; storytelling; instructional design; digitization and AI. It takes the form of workshops for curators and designers, design reviews of plans and prototypes, and commissioning checklists.
Delivered as half-day to two-day workshops, on site or online; design reviews on drawings, mock-ups, or existing installations; checklists for design review, commissioning, and content. Scope and depth are agreed with the institution, its architects, and its exhibition designers.
02 / How It Works
01
Learn the principles
One focus of attention at a time; five choices, not seven; every option costs time; visual thinking is thinking. Cards written to be read in two minutes, each with what to apply and what to watch out for.
02
Review the plan
Drawings, mock-ups, or an existing installation reviewed against the cards: entry point and reading order, spatial configuration, content legibility, accessibility, interaction logic, maintenance. A written note with what to change and why.
03
Commission and check
Checklists for design review, commissioning, and content, so that what opens is what was designed. Four things to observe: where attention goes, what visitors remember, who is left out, what staff can maintain.
04
The four phases
Any interactive station passes through ambient display, implicit interaction, subtle interaction, and personal interaction. Designing each phase on purpose, with its own content and duration, is what separates an installation that is noticed and used from one that is walked past.