Creating Digital Interactive Labels for Art Museums

by Felicia Knise and Kevin Kane

What happens when your curators want to hang more art—but your walls can’t fit any more labels? That question sparked a new digital labeling system at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA), developed during the 2021–2022 reinstallation of the museum’s permanent collection. The NCMA is a vibrant cultural hub with campuses in Raleigh and Winston-Salem, welcoming over 1.17 million visitors annually. This post focuses on the digital labels at our Raleigh campus, which includes two buildings featuring both permanent and ticketed exhibitions, as well as a 164-acre art park.

The digital touch labeling platform provides multilingual support, streaming video playback, high-resolution magnifiable photography of collection objects, and layers supplemental content behind a simple menu system. The project’s goals are to deepen interpretation beyond what conventional print labels can provide and enhance visitor engagement with objects. Developed over one year—from planning in late 2021 to its public debut in October 2022—the system launched across 15 gallery locations.

As you read on, consider how several details of this project can be distilled into best practices for implementing touch interactives into exhibit spaces. 

Collaboration and Ideation

The idea grew out of NCMA’s initiative to reinstall the permanent collection with new interpretive approaches. During brainstorming sessions, curators and interpreters debated the role of traditional wall labels. Many curators hoped to remove them entirely to achieve a more realistic installation of multiple art objects; like salon hangs. Interpreters wanted to ensure visitors still had access to rich interpretive content. 

The digital label became our bridge between those needs. It would preserve curatorial design intentions while giving visitors deeper interpretive options.

Building consensus across departments was crucial. Our interpretation, technology, design, registration, and exhibitions teams worked side-by-side to define goals and map functionality. This collaboration established a shared vision for how digital interpretation could serve both artwork and audience.

Before committing to a final concept, our team visited institutions across the country to see what was already working (and what wasn’t). Most digital labels we encountered were static screens displaying fixed text rather than an interactive system. We returned to Raleigh inspired and ready to prototype.

Core Features

Working with graphic designers, we began wireframing the user interface. One of our guiding principles was that the interface should feel intuitive, regardless of a visitor’s familiarity with technology. To test usability, we printed paper mockups and invited staff and visitors to navigate them. Their feedback helped us refine button placement to menu structure. From there we came up with core features and optional content categories. Every artwork would include the essentials—artist name, title, medium, date, credit line and optional “chat text” (brief explanations of artifact significance). High-resolution photography is provided for each collection object, allowing visitors to examine enlarged detail views. Optional content categories include:

• Conservation Stories, which reveal the behind-the-scenes science of preservation.
  
• Related Works, which connect objects across time, culture, or theme.
  
• Watch More, which hosts short videos featuring curators, artists, or community voices.

Accessibility, Design, and Software Integration

Physical design was just as important as digital functionality. Our custom-designed kiosk stands, developed by NCMA’s exhibitions team, blend into the gallery environment without distracting from nearby artworks.

Every stand follows ADA guidelines for reach, angle, and clearance, ensuring that visitors using mobility devices can easily interact with the screens. The tilt, size, and height were tested to minimize barriers for all users. The digital labels run on a 29-inch Bluefin touch display with a compact Intel NUC computer.

From a software standpoint, flexibility and stability were our top priorities. We built the platform using WordPress as a headless CMS. This allows staff to update text, images, and videos. Each kiosk automatically powers on before opening hours, retrieves new content from the CMS every hour, and caches it locally. If the museum’s network ever goes down, the labels remain fully functional.

Lessons Learned

After three years in use, we’ve learned a great deal from both staff and visitor feedback. An early challenge was visitors’ hesitation to touch gallery screens, as even after the pandemic, many people remain unsure whether they’re meant to interact with digital elements in an art museum setting. Our looping “attract screen” videos—designed to draw visitors in—sometimes obscured the main content, leaving people unaware that the label was touchable. Further research showed this wasn’t as significant a barrier as first thought, so we left the attract screens in place.

To better guide users, we added icons to the main menu indicating which artworks include specific content. A universal “play” button now appears when a video is available—an instantly recognizable signal to “watch.” These design updates help reduce uncertainty and invite exploration.

Visitor surveys revealed insights about placement and density. While the labels are generally well received, one gallery with five kiosks in close proximity has tested less positively. Too many screens in a small area can feel overwhelming, with some visitors preferring printed labels. 

The monitors themselves have also been a learning curve. Around the three-year mark, we saw a wave of hardware failures, with screens breaking one after another. After replacing nearly all of them, we’re now rethinking our hardware for greater durability and a longer shelf life.

What’s Next

The digital label system includes a built-in analytics feature that allows us to monitor visitor engagement and identify usage patterns over time. We can see that on average people spend almost 3 minutes at an individual label. We have high times showing almost 8 minutes and as low as 30 seconds. Longer engagement remains a key indicator of deeper learning. In addition to this data, we continue to rely on our annual visitor survey to assess how well the system is meeting audience needs and to inform future improvements.

Our interpretation team remains focused on expanding the range of content available through the labels. We’re integrating more multimedia and video content to strengthen connections with the collection.

Finally, we are re-evaluating our hardware choices. After replacing several monitors, we’re exploring more durable and sustainable options to ensure the system remains reliable long term. As this project evolves, our goal is to continue refining both the technology and the interpretive experience it supports—creating a platform that grows with the museum and its audiences.