Design of museum exhibits and analysis of visitor-exhibit interactions

This paper discusses the design of three museum exhibits. Arithmetik Garden is an exhibit for experiencing mathematical transformation. Pool of Fingerprints presents a new way of looking at fingerprints by using fingerprint-matching technology; the visitor feels an emotional attachment to his or her fingerprints. Nominal Divide allows the visitor to experience how he or she is seen through computer vision. We discuss the design of these three exhibits in terms of the mechanism, the use of space, and visitor's experience. We also show that appropriate data can be captured to extract information that is useful for understanding people's behavior and for learning how current and future exhibits can be improved.