Exhibit panels: how to explain something ridiculously complex in two paragraphs

I’ve worked at Science Space for just over 2 years now. When I think back on the many things I’ve accomplished during my time here, the thing that I’m most proud of is this unassuming, insignificant exhibit panel.

Many of you are probably looking at this and going “o….k Joh. That’s an exhibit panel.” And you would be absolutely right. But up until I carved out the time to fix this thing it was the bane of my existence.

Here’s why:

“This motor works like a simple motor.” I mean…. I guess?

Science Space, like so many regional science centres, literally runs on the skin of an oily rag. There are three of us who make all of our online content, write shows, run FOH staff, train our Ambassadors, manage our shop etc etc. Between us we’ve got three or four science education degrees, one PhD, one MBA and a Science Communication degree. But because we’re spread so thin we often have to triage. My to do list is basically a wish list at this point.

As to how this even happened in the first place? Well like I said - we’re stretched REALLY thin. It’s been there for so long that at this point, no one here knows where the panel copy came from or who wrote it.

What matters is that we’re fixing it.

And that’s where this post comes in. It turns out I genuinely love writing exhibit panels. Explaining something super complicated and involved in two paragraphs is one of those challenges I can really get my teeth stuck in to. About an hour ago I put the finishing touches on another re-write, this time for our Ferrofluids exhibit.

To start, we need to look at what we’re working with.

VERSION #1

First of all, I’m going to ignore the design elements like font and spacing, and focus on the text. Let’s also ignore the “nonparticles” typo. I think the original author meant “nanoparticles”. Same same right?

The main issue I had with this is that there was too much jargon. And look, technical language is important and sometimes needs to be in there, but if we include it in panels then we need to define it. Have a look at the first sentence. It says that the fluid is made up of “iron” - but then in the next sentence we introduce “iron oxide” with no explanation. Same thing happens with “magnetic field lines”.

My first instinct was to take this panel and keep the general layout and information; just edit how it was delivered. But I quickly put that plan away after chatting to some of my colleagues, floor staff and visitors. When I asked them about what they want to know about the exhibit, most came back with “why is it spiky?” To which I replied, “huh… I dunno.”

It turns out that explaining why ferrofluids do that weird spiky thing is really abstract and complicated. Here’s my first go at it:

Version #2

What’s better about this one is the “what to do” section. It’s hard to explain without being able to see the exhibit itself, but the instructions are much more clear. Instead of the abstract “magnetic field” which doesn’t mean anything to the average non-physicist, I used “electromagnet” (look it’s not a great choice but it’s ok - that gets changed later). And the observation questions are now in active voice rather than passive. We want visitors to touch things and play with the exhibits - inserting them into the panel itself encourages that curiosity.

The “what’s happening section” needs some work. One of the first things I like to do with any exhibit panel is show it to as many non-scientists as possible. The immediate response to this draft was all about my use of the word “predictable”.

What I meant to convey here was a sense that these patterns follow rules. We can “predict” what they’ll look like. But that’s not what came out - no instead this ended up be patronising as hell. As a scientist, “predicable” and “obvious” don’t mean the same thing. To us it’s reassuring, to non-scientists it’s like saying “how could you not see this and understand it? How dumb are you?” To be honest, I didn’t see that coming at all, and I still don’t really get it but that’s how language works right? English is dumb.

Back to the drawing board I went…

VERSION #3

This one was HEAPS closer!

I was convinced this was the one. I explained what happened when you switched on the magnet, I explained why it was called a “ferro” fluid, why it goes all spiky AND why the pattern changes when you spin the red dial.

Getting to this point involved a tonne of reading, watching videos, whiteboard scribbles and discussions with colleagues. We had talks about whether or not to use “magnetic field” at all or just “patterns” to describe what was happening. We had a brainwave to put this one next to our iron filings exhibit so visitors could actually see those patterns. It was written in clear language with no jargon. It was the one.

Or at least I thought it was… I shouldn’t have shown it to anyone (NOTE: this is clearly a joke).

First thing that had to go was the word “electromagnet”. It’s a word that just doesn’t mean anything in this context. If we were explaining how it worked more in terms of electricity and not focusing on the magnetic fields themselves then it would have made sense. But I don’t think it helps here.

Second thing was conveying the idea that the patterns were invisible - there’s no sense of that in version 3.

So I went back to the drawing board… AGAIN.

VERSION #4.

After 3 days, 5 or 6 iterations and hours banging my head against a wall, this is what we’re going with.

I think this works really well given the amount of space we’ve got to play with. It follows the rules we developed for all of our exhibit panels (I might talk about that later in another post!). It’s easy to understand and it gives you enough information to sate your curiosity without being overwhelming.

There’s so much more I wanted to include here. Some real-world applications would have been great (but we need room for an image). The origins of ferrofluids are pretty excellent too. But at the end of the day, one of our visitors will interact with over 100 of these exhibits. Museum fatigue is REAL and we don’t want to overload people with unnecessary information.

Besides; hardly anyone ever reads these anyway. Still the feeling of pride I get from walking past something like this, knowing it’s correct and easy to understand is just so satisfying.

What is it that you do to write panels? What do you think of my process? Let me know in the comments :)

Science Space is a not-for-profit organisation at the University of Wollongong. The work presented here was written by me and should not be reproduced without Science Space’s permission.