The act of entering a museum is a form of interactivity, as is reading directions, labels and looking. What activities then describe an action as ‘interactive’ in the current sense? Perhaps when an action of the visitor triggers a re-action: a computer responds, because a button is pushed; a lever raises because another is pulled; a mirror shows the viewer dressed up. This possibility of a museum actually responding to a visitor is rightly perceived as a breakthrough, as formally they posed as rigid structures over which we could crawl, but with which we could not converse.

This concession however has become a point of controversy: are the museums speaking too much? is this act of generosity actually helping anyone? Is it not in danger of spoiling the visit for others who prefer silence?

When pushed, complaints and frustrations come down to witnessing small children running amok through museum galleries pushing buttons and either not stopping to see the results of their push or just breaking them. This is irritating to adults who have fond memories of visiting the basement of the old Science Museum in order to push the only buttons in London: these kids seem so spoilt for button opportunities that they dismiss them as an end in themselves – and therefore miss the point of something having been set up for them as a quasi-scientific experiment, part of which, of course, is waiting to see what happens. In other words, the starting point of the interactive is to encourage the skill of looking.

Looking at objects is one way of learning, but there are others, and this is where it gets personal. Some like to read, some like to listen, some like to feel, some need a movie, some need to talk, many like a bit of each. The anxiety is that the object is beginning to lose out. Many Science Centres have moved the object to one side in favour of the promotion of its interpretation – often through interactivity. This suggests a lack of faith in the object, a bit like putting Shakespeare into grass skirts. This is a pity, and is an abdication of the curators’ responsibility to be a guide and editor.

Casson Mann has recently worked on two projects concurrently –the Wellcome Wing galleries at the Science Museum and the British Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum. One was about scientific principles, with objects as illustrations, and the other was about objects with ideas as an ordering device.

Both have many interactives, many of which are electronic, some of which are ‘mechanical’ – or low-tech. ( We did not design the interactives , only the housings of them) Both projects had curators who had many things to say and who were clear about how they wanted to say them. Both museums had a sophisticated understanding of the merits and weaknesses of interactives, the Science Museum from years of hands-on experience and the V&A from careful research and an awareness of the probable resistance from large numbers of their regular visitors, many of whom subscribe to the ’let the objects speak for themselves’ school.

Both museums carried out extensive audience testing.

The Science Museum’s long history of using interactives make their extensive use in the Wellcome Wing unsurprising. What has been interesting however is how the ‘group’ interactives on the Third floor have made contact with teenagers – a notoriously difficult group to engage. The galleries have also used artists working in interactive multimedia to deal with some of the more fragile issues . This has worked well.

Although many of the the interactives in the British Galleries are simple, pick-up-and-feel, guess-the-answer, try-it-on, make-your-own and so on, and touching in that museum is strong – as strong as the need to touch the toes of the Pieta; many are not only electronic , but placed alongside the objects. The predicted resistance has melted and it is the adults who are engaging as much as the children – relieved to find answers to questions they never dared to ask.

The Guardian headlines ‘Museum rising star ditches gadgetry’ which is a slightly misleading (how unusual) summary of Simon Thurley’s frustration with broken equipment and the button-pushing syndrome. And I am in sympathy with him and his clipboard worksheets: (I am also a devotee of the diorama: Save the Diorama Society?) But I think we need two things before we go much further: one is an objective assessment of the real efficacy of the interactive – in all its forms, ( finally underway I understand) and the other is the need for more work on the Third Kind.

This is to do the voice of the visitor: these are the ones that the museum can learn from, and the lesson they learn is that their visitors are unpredictable and a largely untapped resource: every visitor has another life, they make their own connections, have their own narratives, their own experiences, their own views.

Watching a group of small children drawing objects in the British Galleries was a lesson in how to look: some of the responses to an invitation to interpret a mystery painting were eye-opening texts. Contributions to the Wellcome Wing can stop you in your tracks.

The traffic of knowledge is not always one way, and maybe the missing interactive is the one that allows the visitor to speak. It is less likely to break down anyway.