Let Your Clients Hack Your Exhibit with a Backdoor

Thursday, May 22, 2014 9:40 PM by Jason Cox in Design and Planning


A literal back door, not the programming equivalent.

When youre designing do you spend much time thinking about how the client will access and service components? We recently had a client stop by our shop who we had worked with on many projects together. We walked around the shop showing him all the projects we had in progress.

One of the projects he was impressed with was an interactive tree exhibit were fabricating for another repeat client — Dillon Nature Center in Hutchinson, Kansas. Within this tree is a video periscope activity that allows visitors to look into the lens and see a red-bellied woodpecker eating sap and insects. He said he was impressed with the amount of thought that went into thinking about the client and that we should blog about it. Given that we pride ourselves on listening to our clients…below are progress photos of the exhibit highlighting the video periscope activity.

Knowing that we are dealing with a flatscreen monitor and other electronics, we understood the potential for restarts and typical troubleshooting. Understanding this made us think about access and put ourselves in our clients shoes. What if I had to get into this tree to restart something or replace a component? What kind of access would I want? We didn’t look at it with the stand point of what would be easier for us to fabricate and we didn’t ask “How many times are they really going to have to access this equipment?”

This photo on the left shows the tree in the primer stage.

The below image shows the area where the visitor looks into the periscope to see the woodpecker.

We decided that we wanted front access and that we would not try to hide the access panel but incorporate it into the exhibit.

This image shows the access panel removed and how all components are easily accessed by the client. Access is gained by removing three screws then pulling the panel forward towards you. The panel isn’t heavy but its durable enough to not be damaged easily.

I’d love to hear your examples of exhibits that were easily accessed and even ones that weren’t.

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