Touchscreen

The Musée des Années 30 (Museum of the 1930s) is in Boulogne-Billancourt, just outside Paris. When it redesigned its decorative arts section, it installed a touchscreen kiosk devoted to Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, the Art Deco interior designer. The goal was to give every visitor, whoever they are, more to explore and a closer look at the museum’s decorative arts collections.

On screen, visitors follow Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann’s career and work, explore the grand interiors he designed, then look at his pieces in detail.

Everything was produced in-house, over six months. The museum’s documentation officer wrote the texts and prepared the images; the head of visitor services built them into PandaSuite. Changes still go through her, with no outside contractor.

To anyone on the fence, the museum says: “The software is very easy to pick up and very instructive! The tutorials are especially useful, and customer support is responsive and explains things very clearly.”

Visitors are drawn to the kiosk and say they’re excited to find extra images and texts about the artist. The city’s museums department is now finishing a new interpretive kiosk project.