Hybrid interactions in museums: Why materiality still matters

The importance of physical and tangible qualities in museum visits has been established by extensive literature exploring the importance of materiality (Dudley 2013) and multisensory experiences (Levent & Pascual-Leone 2014) of heritage. A challenge for digital technology design is to ensure that these dimensions are not lost to visually heavy virtual experiences. This chapter examines hybrid interactions in museums, outlining exemplars of successful physical-digital installations and defining the key aspects to consider for their design and evaluation. The goal is to complement chapters on virtual approaches to heritage with insights on how and why to successfully bridge the physical and the digital in hybrid designs.