Understanding and Engaging Visitors

(Visitor Studies to the Rescue!)

Hawai’i Museums Association

Honolulu, Hawai’i

April 25, 2014

Wendy Meluch, MA

VisitorStudies.Com

Visitor Studies

Tools:

• This slide show

• VisitorStudiesManual.

WordPress.com • See this Manual for details about items in this

slideshow which are marked with an asterisk *

Photo credit: http://dougberch.com

All photos by Wendy Meluch unless otherwise noted

Visitor Studies

Nancy Barth

Why do people visit our institutions?

Motivation Research

• Satisfying Experiences (Doering 1999) • Strangers, Guests or Clients? Visitor Experiences in Museums (http://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/17219/opanda_99-5-

strangers.pdf;jsessionid=ED4827D6157ADE6158563A8E66CAA57B?sequence=1)

• Motivational Factors (Packer 2002) • Motivational Factors and the visitor experience: A comparison of three sites

(http://eprints.qut.edu.au/219/1/Curator_2002_paginated.pdf)

• Botanical Gardens (Ballantyne 2007) • Environmental awareness, interests and motives of botanic gardens visitors: Implications for interpretive practice

(http://www.researchgate.net/publication/43496714_Environmental_awareness_interests_and_motives_of_botanic_gardens_visitors_Im

plications_for_interpretive_practice/file/9fcfd5060e965b01a8.pdf

• Identity and the Museum Visitor

Experience (Falk 2009) • https://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=214

• Another take on Falk’s Identity work http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10645578.2011.608001

Motivation Studies You Can Do

• John Falk’s Identity - card sort activity*

• Short survey at entry*

Motivation Studies – What you can learn

• What aspect of a visit people emphasize

• What kind of experiences people expect of

your institution

• How your institution is perceived

• If visitors’ impressions match your

messaging

• How to meet expectations and interests

(Entry Studies – What else you can learn)

Easy to collect additional data at entrance…

• Marketing campaigns

• Home zip code

• Membership status

• Visit history

• Keep it short and quick (>2 min)

What do they need when they arrive?

Welcome, Comfort, Orientation - Research

• Creature Needs - Maslow • Maslow’s Hierarchy

• http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Great-Visitor-Experiences-Libraries/dp/1598741691/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394740982&sr=8-

1&keywords=creating+great+visitor+experiences+a+guide+for+museums+parks+zoos+gardens+and+libraries

• Creature Comforts • Paco Underhill book: Why we Buy: http://www.pacounderhill.com/booklist.html

• Phases of Visit • http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Great-Visitor-Experiences-Libraries/dp/1598741691/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394740982&sr=8-

1&keywords=creating+great+visitor+experiences+a+guide+for+museums+parks+zoos+gardens+and+libraries

• Special Needs Populations

Welcome, Comfort, Orientation

Studies That You Can Do

• Self-assessment (visit phases - Stephanie

Weaver book)*

• Observational Study*

• Short Intercept Interview*

Welcome, Comfort, Orientation Studies

What You Can Learn

• What’s working well

• What things are challenging visitors about

the visit

• How better to support visitors for fuller use

of your facility and higher satisfaction levels

• Easy fixes

How can we support engagement

and learning in the galleries?

Before Front-end Evaluation

• Big Idea

• Ask exhibit team members and stakeholders

how they hope future visitors will respond to

Beverly Serrell’s prompts in a summative

exit survey:*

The purpose of this exhibition is

To show people…

To make people…

Front-end and Formative Evaluation

Inform Development

Front-end Evaluation – Content-related Research

• Public relates to objects • http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10645578.2013.767728#.U1cnEaLiizN

• Public perceptions of climate change • http://www.aza.org/uploadedFiles/Conservation/Commitments_and_Impacts/Climate_Disruption/NWZAA_climate_summary_final.pdf

• http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/MuseumReport

• http://www.sheddaquarium.org/pdf/publicrelations/CLiZEN_news_release_-_FINAL.pdf

• Natural History Museum Visitors’

Understanding of Evolution • http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/10/875.full

• Lit review of museum visitor

characteristics and behavior • http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Museum+visitors+-+characteristics+and+behaviour

Front-end Evaluation Studies That You Can Do

• Docent cart conversations*

• Talk-back boards, objects*

• Surveys, Card sort activities*

• Individual and/or group interviews*

• Helpful resources • Dierking, Lynn D., and Wendy Pollock. 1998. Questioning assumptions: An Introduction to Front-end Studies in Museums. Washington,

D.C.: Association of Science-Technology Centers.

• Parsons, Chris. “Front-End Evaluation: How Do You Choose the Right Questions?.” Visitor Studies 6, no. 1 (1993): 66-72.

• Korn, Randi. “Making the most of front-end evaluation.” Visitor Studies Today 6, no. 3 (2003): 22-24.

• McLean, Kathleen. 1993. Planning for people in museum exhibitions. Washington, DC: Association of Science-Technology Centers.

• Diamond, Judy, Jessica J. Luke, and David H. Uttal. 2009. Practical evaluation guide: tool for museums and other informal educational

settings. Lanham, Md: AltaMira Press.

Front-end Evaluation Studies

What you can Learn

“Personal Narrative”

• Visitor knowledge, misapprehensions

• Visitor attitudes

• Visitor questions and confusion

• Where visitors get their information

• Vocabulary

• Expectations

• Preferences

Formative Evaluation

Exhibit & Behavior Research & Resources

• Designing Exhibits/Visitor Behavior • Groups which produce and/or publish on this topic: ASTC.org, InformalScience.org, Museum Education Roundtable

(http://museumeducation.info/), Museum Learning Collaborative (http://www.museumlearning.org/), National Association for Museum

Exhibition (http://name-aam.org/), Online Evaluation Resource Library (http://oerl.sri.com/), Visitor Studies Association

(VisitorStudies.org),

• Designs for learning: Studying science museum exhibits that do more than entertain, Sue Allen

(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.20016/abstract)

• Simon, Nina. 2010. The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz, Calif: Museum 2.0.

• Falk, John H., and Lynn D. Dierking. 1992. The Museum Experience. Washington, DC: Whalesback Books.

• McLean, Kathleen. 1993. Planning for people in museum exhibitions. Washington, DC: Association of Science-Technology Centers.

• McLean, Kathleen, Wendy Pollock, and Peter S. Samis. 2007. Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions. Washington, DC: Association of

Science-Technology Centers Inc.

• The Information-Seeking Behavior of Museum Visitors A Review of Literature Tori Orr; May 19, 2004 (Google this to get to the

Microsoft Word document which references many leading authors on this topic)

• Cleveland Museum of Art, and C. Griffith Mann. 1993. The Visitor’s Voice: Visitor Studies in the Renaissance-Baroque Galleries of the

Cleveland Museum of Art, 1990-1993. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art.

• The NSF Framework for Evaluating Impacts of Informal Science Education Projects (2008) is available online only.

• Serrell, Beverly. 1996. Exhibit labels: an interpretive approach. Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press.

• Serrell , Beverly, Are They Watching? Visitors and Videos in Exhibitions, Curator: The Museum Journal, Volume 45, Issue 1, pages 50–

64, January 2002 (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2151-6952.2002.tb00049.x/abstract)

• Please also see Motivation resources

Formative Evaluation Studies That You Can Do

• Proto-type testing*

– Cases, interactives, text, graphics

• Short surveys*

• Helpful resources • Worksheets from Peggy Monahan and Tina Keegan*

• Taylor, Samuel, Beverly Serrell, and Susan M. Stern. 1991. Try It! Improving Exhibits Through Formative Evaluation. Washington,

D.C.: Association of Science-Technology Centers.

• Please also see

Formative Evaluation Studies

What you can learn

• Effectiveness of physical design, how to

improve/simplify access and use

• Effectiveness of messaging, how to refine

vocabulary and voice

• Which stories/objects/titles are (not)

compelling

• Surprising things that front-end evaluation

might not have revealed

How can we

know how the

experiences we

design are

impacting

visitors?

Summative and Remedial Evaluation

Assess Use and Impacts

Summative and Remedial Evaluation Studies

That You Can Do

• Observational Study*

• Exit Survey (cued)*

• Self assessment*

• Helpful resources • Serrell, Beverly. 1998. Paying attention: visitors and museum exhibitions. [Washington, D.C.]: American Association of Museums.

• Ittelson, William H., Leanne G. Rivlin, and Harold M. Proshansky. 1970. The use of behavioral maps in environmental psychology. In

Environmental psychology: Man and his physical setting, ed. Harold M. Proshansky, William H. Ittelson, and Leanne G. Rivlin, 658–68.

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

• Beverly Serrell’s Framework for Assessing Excellence in Exhibitions from a Visitor-Centered Perspective)

(http://www.serrellassociates.org/pdf/EJFramework507.pdf)

• The NSF Framework for Evaluating Impacts of Informal Science Education Projects (2008) is available online only.

Summative and Remedial Studies

What you can learn

• Patterns of use

• Dwell time

• Impacts: cognitive, affective, behavioral • For more information about impacts and how to describe them, see the National Science Foundation’s Informal Science

Education Framework (2008) and National Research Council’s Learning Science in Informal Environments (2009).* • Both are relevant to non-science projects as well.

• Inform remediation

• Inform future projects

Field Trips

Field Trip Research

• A Short Review of School Field Trips: Key Findings from

the Past and Implications for the Future, Jennifer DeWitt & Martin Storksdieck (2008)

Visitor Studies, 11:2, 181-197, DOI: 10.1080/10645570802355562 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10645570802355562)

• The effectiveness of orienting students to the physical

features of a science museum prior to visitation, David Anderson, Keith B.

Lucas, Research in Science Education 1997, Volume 27, Issue 4, pp 485-495 (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02461476)

• The Educational Value of Field Trips: Taking students to an

art museum improves critical thinking skills, and more, Jay P.

Greene, Brian Kisida and Daniel H. Bowen, (http://educationnext.org/the-educational-value-of-field-trips/)

• An excellent model of a VTS tour evaluation was conducted at the Frye in

Seattle in 2012. That multi-method “formative/summative” evaluation used tour observations, visitor interviews, visitor surveys, and data

collector surveys. The full report includes clear discussions of project goals and study rationale.

(http://visitorstudiesmanual.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/vts_tour_evaluaton_report.pdf)

Field Trip Evaluation Studies

You Can Do

• Front-end and Formative with teachers

(group interviews!)*

• Observation*

• Teacher and chaperone surveys, interviews*

• Always be aware of your funder’s requirements for use of an Institutional Review Board

(IRB) to approve and oversee research with human

subjects (any kind of study, not just fieldtrip studies).

Rules are especially stringent when minors are involved.

Field Trip Evaluation Studies

What you can learn

• Teacher needs and preferences

• Logistical problems and successes

• Impacts on teachers and students

• Suggestions for improvements

• Suggestions for additional programs

Satisfaction Questions

• Net Promoter Score:

– Best used iteratively to assess impacts of changes

– Best with large samples/institutions

– “On a scale of 0-10 how likely are you to

recommend… Why did you answer the way you

did?”

% of respondents to rate 9-10

- % of respondents to rate 0-6

= Net Promoters

• Did your visit today meet/not meet/exceed

your expectations? How or why?

Albert Einstein

Everything

should be made

as simple as

possible, but not

simpler.

Thank you