Comparative Study On Display Content Design Of Digital Museum And Physical Museum

Digital museum rised in the 1990s, which came into being as a new mode of cultural heritage management and utilization with the rapid development of computer technology, multimedia technology, communication technology and network technology in the information era. As a new form of museum, digital museum embodies distinct characteristics of the times and features in itself, which are both intensively reflected in its display and design.The study took comparative method to make a comparison on display characteristics of digital museum and physical museum and with the basic theories on content design of physical museum as important references, it analyzed the differences of content design methods of digital display and physical display.This paper is divided into three parts:The first part introduced the formation and development of museum display and the elements and functions of physical museum display. It made a definition of the concept of digital museum display and stressed the importance of digital display.The second part mainly discussed the basic theories of content design for physical display, which was the theoretical basis for the following comparison. Also, it made it clear what objectives and tasks of content design for digital museum display should be.The last part is the key. Based on different display characteristics of the two, referring to the basic theories of content design for physical display, it made a detailed discussion by the comparison of content design methods of digital display and traditional display.By comparison the study shows that: these two kinds of museums have different display characteristics in seven aspects which are display carrier, show mode, information carrier, show means, transmission way, information resource utilization and service objects. There are also differences in the ways of content design in the following five aspects, which are topic selection and organization, ways of thinking, selection and utilization of collection resources, organization and expression of auxiliary information and writing of display text.The results of the study could provide necessary and valuable reference for designers to make good use of the conditions and characteristics of digital museum itself to do content design well. Designers should pay enough attention to the digital characteristics in content design. Only in this way can the unique display function of digital museum be fully realized to meet audience's cultural needs growing with the arrival of information society and to realize its social education function.