Analysis of Museum Exhibition Space Optimization Design: Grounded Theory and Analytic Hierarchy Process

This study explores the significance of museum exhibition space design on visitor experience and cultural educational outcomes, aiming to optimize exhibition space design from the user perspective to enhance visitor experience and satisfaction.Using Grounded Theory, the study delves into understanding visitor expectations and needs regarding exhibition spaces through semistructured interviews, focusing on core categories such as user experience, interactivity, and information access.The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed to rank and weigh these core categories and their subcategories, clarifying their prioritization in exhibition design.Specific methods include coding and inductive analysis of interview data to form core categories and subcategories, and establishing a hierarchical structure model with expert scoring and consistency checks to calculate the weights of each category.The results show that interactivity has the highest weight (0.379), followed by user experience (0.336) and information access (0.285), indicating that visitors particularly value interactivity and convenient information access in exhibitions.This study has direct implications for museum practitioners and policymakers, with recommendations including: enhancing interactive elements by introducing interactive exhibits, digital experiences, and participatory activities to improve visitor engagement and satisfaction; optimizing the comfort of exhibition environments by focusing on spatial layout, lighting, and temperature control to create a comfortable and engaging visiting environment; and diversifying information access methods by providing multilingual guides, electronic displays, and mobile applications to facilitate information retrieval for visitors.These recommendations offer practical strategies for improving museum exhibition space design and contribute theoretical support and empirical research foundations to the advancement of the exhibition industry.