It is not difficult to understand why Museums have at times had a reputation as intimidating and unfriendly places. It is an exaggerated view, based on a perception – not entirely misplaced – of how museums were a couple of decades ago, with dwindling visitor numbers, waning public enthusiasm and an often uninspired presentation of their collections. The traditional way of presenting collections had been to focus simply on the best way for them to be observed the best way to help them be understood with our eyes. Passive contemplation was encouraged. Look; but don’t touch.

We might even draw a comparison with the decline in church attendance. Museums were also treated as ‘holy’ places for quiet and serious meditation. They were formal places. The object was treated carefully, with respect and with awe. There was a right and a wrong way to behave – and touching, sniffing, poking, and questioning were not part of that etiquette. The interpretative text panels were becoming increasingly dense and fewer people could understand them, or had the attention span to take it all in. The perception is that the audiences that remained loyal to these dusty institutions were becoming more and more specialised; cranky even. Outside of those in the know; more and more people held the belief that museums were not for them.

As designers, of course we understand that touching is not compatible with the requirements of conservation (the warning signs are everywhere). But in spite of this – and there are ways round it, as we have found at the British Galleries at the V&A – touch is a valuable and powerful sense through which much can be understood and appreciated, that cannot be understood, examined, or loved through the eyes alone. Elsewhere, outside of the Museum world, in places like the John Lewis fabric department, or clothes shops people are frantically and instinctively feeling, rubbing and stroking. Their senses are hungry for nourishment. Taking full advantage of this phenomenon, retailers are placing their price labels, deliberately concealed, on the bases of glassware, china and whatever else to get us to pick things up and hold them. They know that the point of engagement in a direct relationship with the object can make an instant impression on our minds and souls ­ accelerating the possibility of making a sale.

However, back in the Museum our natural instinct for exploration through touch has, until recent times, not been welcome. Our curiosity has been suppressed, and as a result, so has our natural excitement and engagement. Sheets of glass were erected between us and our heritage, and as a result between us and the possibility of getting closer and understanding more. In general our natural desire to touch the displays in front of us has to be discouraged, and understandably so. Our collections have been protected, looked after and saved for the benefit of our generation, and we have a responsibility to generations in the future. But this has become a problem where collecting, cataloguing, and preserving have become the ends rather than the means, and the wider public don’t get a look in. The object has become more important than our understanding of it. Despite the inherent problems, things are changing, and have changed. Working with many different museums, Casson Mann have been involved in facilitating this shift – a shift that has involved the visitor becoming central to the displays. Most institutions agree that open display has a wider appeal in practical terms, and more importantly, in spirit. The public are now exposed to many kinds of objects in museums, many of them don’t have an instant visual or intellectual appeal and when simply placed in view of the public, can seem quite boring. As designers, we are involved in conversations with curators about how to make these objects seem more interesting and attractive, or how to bring back meaning or empathy where these have been lost over time.

We are currently planning the display of nearly eighty rail vehicles for the National Railway Museum and Sedgfield Borough Council in the town of Shildon in the north east of England. As all the vehicles belong to the reserve collection of the NRM many are hard working wagons used for transporting minerals, steel and other goods. Frankly, for most, the objects won’t have the same splendour as the Bullet Train or the Mallard, but the story here will be told through interactive areas that consider the impact these humble vehicles have had on our lives – delivering food to our supermarkets, building materials for our houses, commuting and going on holiday. These are the topical social and environmental concerns that crop up in the media everyday. Matters are made even more difficult for the designer, the curator, and the public, where there are no objects at all on display – where the curators and designers are trying to communicate ideas to the public without any solid objects to hang the ideas onto. Here we have to aim to give the intangible subjects a greater substance and presence in the space.

Designing the Sparking Reaction exhibition for the Science Museum, replacing the previous visitor centre exhibition for BNFL at Sellafield, we understood the public unease with the subject. Another exhibition that simply explained the processes and advantages of nuclear energy production wouldn’t have opened up the subject to the visitors, this would have buried the debate behind political propaganda. Instead; six giant projection screens on the walls and floors delivered the range of wide spread in written quotes, from the local farmer, the environmental campaigner, to the chairman of BNFL. It was important to help visitors engage with written text in an issues based exhibition. The projections provided an physical and intellectually immersive space at the centre of the exhibition where text is revealed and concealed in a series of animations that intrigue and draw in the visitors thoughts.

But even when exhibiting real works of art there is nowadays a greater interest in making the works feel immediately accessible – making them grab interest and even focus that interest into finding out more. It is the general sense of worth in an artefact that has changed. Once we were simply interested in what the artist or the object wanted to say; the ‘reason’ for the work’s existence, in an inward-looking sense. Today we are looking outwards from the object into the world – we are much more interested in how the works can enter into relationships with us, our own history, our environment, our understanding of the world. (In the last century – in full steam in the sixties – artists themselves were enthusiastically advocating this tendency for audience inclusion and participation. Paradoxically, the end result was often a general public that felt even more alienated).

This way of thinking has developed to such an extent that today displays have become incomplete without human interaction. Many curators now treat the pieces as learning tools – springboards for further enquiry – focusing on what they can teach us rather than just what they are. We see the objects themselves as tasters, starting points; a way into broader topics, or fragmented sentences that piece by piece build up into an overall narrative – and stimulate the critical sense of the spectator. The spectator has a critical role to play in this drama – in filling in the gaps with their reactions, thoughts and interactions. Conversely, while introducing contemporary topics that we can relate to more easily, this can help us ‘look again’ at our historic collections, and see them freshly, with renewed interest and understanding and excitement.

The 15 British Galleries at the V&A trace the development of British Art and design from 1500 to 1900 and, for the first time, because of the new environmental conditions, painting, drawings and prints are displayed alongside costume, textiles, furniture, glass, ceramics and fine art, together with five complete period rooms. The galleries display just under 3000 objects and woven throughout are 95 interactives – or interpretative devices – ranging from touch screens computers and videos, to bits of balustrade to touch. The desire to have objects on open display – away from glass, out of the case, making them more vulnerable, and yet infinitely more accessible – perhaps because they are more vulnerable – means that they have to be positioned more than arms length away, and since people have elastic arms, this can be quite a distance, and the joy of open display is lost through mist.

However, in the British Galleries we have put many objects on open display, not all of them that far way, and we have folded directly into the displays 30 or 40 objects – or fragments of objects – which people can touch. Shards of ceramic, bits of fabric, samples of mattress, chunks of timber. The visitor is encouraged to explore transparency, weight, texture, carved detail and so on. Many are primarily designed for the handicapped, but not all and few people pass them without a stroke. They succeed where they channel the frustrations of not touching the formally displayed objects into a focussed feel of the fragment: a poor substitute but something, and something which is related to the subject in hand. Appealing to wider audiences is now an economic and social reality for museums. Both the Government and the Heritage Lottery Fund have insisted upon it. After November, when the true impact of the Disabled Discrimination Act comes into force, institutions may have their cases tested in court. Level access and lifts for wheelchairs might not be enough. It will become clear whether offering a way into their collections through looking alone can satisfy other disabled communities like the blind and partially sighted. If we assume that the primary function and focus of a contemporary museum is learning, then it follows that learning in any democratic society must be accessible to the largest number of people. Psychology teaches us that every individual has a different style of learning (linguistic, musical, mathematical, physical) and that we tend to remember better the things we have experimented with. In creating spaces for manual activities in museums, such as the British Galleries at the V&A, we increase the visitor’s interest in these displays, and help to cement the knowledge in their memory. If we feed more of the senses at once – offering opportunities to touch, to play games, to hear sound – then we appeal directly to more people, in more ways. The challenge museums are facing up to is in targeting the senses directly wherever possible, to invoke a human response. A first hand encounter through the fingertips has an instant appeal that can take hold in our minds and instantly make a visit memorable. Mention the Science Museum to anyone who hasn’t visited for thirty years and they are sure to remember the Vandergraaff Generator, and the tingling sensation in their fingertips while their hair stood on end.

For that reason, contemporary museums are offering areas where we can find samples to touch, tools to reproduce the processes used to create the work, and an ever greater range of devices that give more information in a practical and an entertaining way. Advancing technologies have enabled the production of new kinds of high-tech interfaces for the visitor, and developments behind the scenes have also brought about valuable new opportunities for displays. Progress in air conditioning systems for example, have provided stable gallery environments where objects, particularly textiles, have for the first time in decades been allowed to venture outside of showcases, and shake the dust off themselves. While interactivity brings its own difficulties (most obviously when they don’t work), amidst fears of ‘dumbing down’, museums are becoming legitimately ‘great days out’ in an increasingly competitive market for our time, money, attention and stimulus for our senses.