An arrangement for unfamiliar visitors

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

The coastal archive had placed its letters, maps and photographs in date order for an online exhibition. At a family open day, I watched visitors move from one item to another without seeing how the pieces fitted together. Instead of leading them through the collection in that order, I selected a small number of items and built three themed trails: journeys, work and storms. Each trail began with a different question, so a visitor could choose a starting point.

Before the new version went live, a family group tried one trail on a tablet. They followed the images but kept returning to the first screen to check which route they had chosen. I added the name of the trail and a small map of the coast to the top of every screen. When the group tried the trail again, they reached the final item without returning to the beginning.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

The theatre collection displayed costumes, props and programmes according to the people who had donated them. Visitors who did not know the productions often looked at the objects separately and missed the work involved in putting on a show. The curator made a new route through the room: an idea was followed by the costume, prop and programme that showed how it had developed on stage. The route therefore crossed the old donor groups.

A pair of first-time visitors walked through the display before it opened to the public. They stopped beside a programme because they could not see which part of the route it belonged to. The curator placed it beside the costume it described and then asked another new visitor to try the route. That visitor completed it without stopping, so the revised arrangement was kept.

Both texts describe the ways the projects responded to people unfamiliar with their collections.