UX Lesson from the Tower of London
This post explores an example of a unique user experience (ux) design, observed at the Jewel House, Tower of London. It is the second part of the series: “Learning UX from Museums.” Read the first part here or here.
The Jewel House in the Tower of London complex is one of the most popular tourist attractions of London. This museum is home to the Coronation Jewels of England: gems, jewelry, crowns and ceremonial objects worth millions of pounds. Among the priceless exhibits are the spectacular Koh-i-noor and Cullinan diamonds.
Context
The regalia has been exhibited to the public since 1665. Its popularity has only increased over the years, attracting thousands of visitors on a daily basis. The exhibition has also been regularly updated in order to address the user experience of the visitors. This article is about one such significant change which happened in 1993–94.
The Challenge
By the end-80s, visitors to the Jewel House had to wait for an excruciating two hours, before climbing 49 steps down to the underground vault where the crown jewels were displayed. This was due to two main reasons:
- The vault, originally designed to process a daily footfall of 5000, was absolutely inadequate to handle the 15000-strong crowd.
- Tourists would invariably spend a long time in front of the key attractions. This is a common occurrence in museums across the world, leading to the inevitable bottleneck.
The capacity problem could easily be solved by moving the exhibition to a bigger venue. However, a key challenge with the user experience (UX) of the Jewel House remained: How was one to prevent bottlenecks near the popular exhibits?
The Solution
In 1994, after an expenditure of 10 million pounds, the exhibition was moved to a new jewel house — Waterloo Barracks — which could comfortably process a crowd of 20,000. The Coronation Jewels were placed inside bombproof showcases, placed on a bed of French velvet and lit by state-of-the-art lighting. But what about tourists who would not stop admiring the Koh-i-noor, remaining rooted in front of the showcase?
The solution was amazingly simple: To NOT let the tourists stand still.
Enter the best friend of lazy people — the airport travelators. The corridors on either side of the Coronation Jewels were fitted with travelators.
This ensured that a close view of the jewels could be had only if the visitor stood on the designated travelator, which would be turned on during periods of heavy footfall.
So, on a particularly crowded day, there is no way for a visitor to spend more than a few minutes to admire each exhibit. The travelator ensures that the crowd (even reluctantly) keeps moving.
In 2012, a ramped platform was added just beside the travelators. This addition completed the final missing piece of the visitor UX puzzle. There were certainly a significant number of people who wanted to have a long-ish look at the jewels. This platform helped them achieve that from a short distance away, without crowding the main exhibit.
Ending Note
When this entire setup was introduced, there were disapproving groans from museum designer communities. However, it has worked out well for the Tower of London. Even on a busy Sunday, my visit to the Jewel House was remarkably hassle-free. Thanks to to clever UX redesign.
All views expressed in this article are personal. Photography was not permitted inside this museum, so I used cartoons instead. The artwork is mine. Feel free to share and use. Acknowledgement would be appreciated.
I work as an UX analyst with Srijan Technologies, New Delhi. Find out more about Srijan.
