Sustainable Environmental Communication Project: Eco-Friendly and Sensory Materials for Museums

In the context of large museum centers, numerous national and international methodological experiments show the need to consider, in wayfinding design, both the intangible issues of experience arising from perception and involvement (user-centered design), and social and environmental issues (environment-centered design). The aim of this research is to propose a tool for organizing integrated information on so-called smart materials that takes both perspectives into account. This study was performed by conducting a two-phase systematic literature and library review of materials. Specifically, 63 scientific articles—selected by keywords, publication date and content—and 7 national and international material libraries were investigated. The investigation highlighted how the sensory characteristics of wayfinding materials in museums are treated separately from the environmental characteristics and how the quality of the technical information of the materials filed in the material libraries could be improved. The result of the research concerns the structuring of a ‘standard sheet’ for the cataloguing of materials that integrates technical (sensory and environmental) information while also offering a contextualization of the material within wayfinding application cases in known museums. The proposed tool facilitates designers in the selection of materials to be adopted in the wayfinding project, offering information both on their ability to offer alternative communication channels in response to different users’ sense–perceptual functioning and on their quantitative environmental impact properties. This study conducted through the integration of different multidisciplinary fields (technological approach to design, inclusive design, environmental psychology, material science, visual communication, environmental protection related to people’s well being) offers a significant contribution in the context of museum wayfinding design, providing stakeholders with practical tools to select materials that promote inclusion and sustainability.