My first impression of the Shanghai Natural History Museum was that it was pretty accessible for non-Chinese speakers in the sense that there was a good amount of English, whether it was on the signs or the captions. As someone who can only read a limited amount of Chinese, I appreciated that I could still participate in and understand the museum experience without having to know Chinese.
The next thing I noticed was that there were many children at the museum. This initially confused me, since we went on a Wednesday afternoon, but I just assumed that they were too young to have school. I saw that although they didn’t read the captions on the things that they were looking at, they were drawn to the interactive portions, whether or not they only wanted to press the buttons. I experimented with the touch screens myself and found them to be fun and entertaining, even though there were a lot of touch screens that didn’t work.
In addition to interactive touch screens, the museum had a lot of things that either moved or showed movement, which was very engaging and made the museum feel “alive”. These movements and noises contributed to the overall museum’s atmosphere in a way that made each exhibition feel very welcoming.
Adding on to the welcoming aspect of the museum’s atmosphere, I personally thought that the museum did indeed feel like a natural history museum. Since we started at the beginning with space and dinosaurs and ended with modern animals and civilization, I really felt like we were walking through history, especially with so many exhibits being visual and movement. These things made the museum’s experience very immersive, like we were walking through the time of when these things were happening.
Even for for objects that didn’t have movement, it still felt like an immersive experience because of the use of dioramas. Dioramas allow for the viewer to see a 3d image of what the surroundings of the object looks like. Instead of only seeing the object, we get to see the context of the object and what their role is in an ecosystem.
As there was an abundance of children, and therefore an abundance of families, I liked that there were a lot of things catered to those types of experiences. There were paths in the brochure that people could follow depending on the age of their children and purpose of their visit. There were also many resting areas for people to stop and sit at incase they got tired or needed to rest, which is useful with families of both children and the elderly. I also saw accessibility for the disabled, since there was a lift next to the stairs. There were also many accessible bathrooms for people to use, which makes the experience easier and more convenient.
The museum was also located in a very good location, since we were able to walk out and admire the sculpture park afterwards. There was also Starbucks on the other side of the street which would make it convenient for people who want to eat or drink.
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