When people find out that I live in Germany, am not fluent in German, but develop and conduct visitor studies for German museums, a common question is: How? How do I understand why visitors are coming, what they’re doing, how they’re engaging, and what they want when I don’t always understand what visitors are saying? A difference…
While working on a new evaluation project with the Freiburg Museum Natur und Mensch, I’ve come across an interesting example of how un-prompted visitor-contributed content can work. In the temporary exhibit “Letzte Ölung Nigerdelta,” one room invites visitors to sit and watch a projected series of photographs exploring the social, economical, and environmental affects of the oil industry…
Six years ago today I began working on my first audience evaluation. Among other things, the exhibit invited visitors to measure their heart rate while doing different exercises. Imagine my excitement when I found video of the running-on-a-treadmill portion of the study. And people wonder why I love evaluation…
*You’re right. I had some downtime today while logging timing and tracking hours, so I came up with my version of the Museum Evaluator’s Playlist. Enjoy. Any songs to add?
During my latest tracking and timing study, I’ve noticed something. At the risk of ridiculous over-generalization, German visitors appear to spend more time in museum exhibits than American visitors. On average, I’m observing German visitors spending twice as long as Americans in exhibits of comparable size and content that I’ve conducted studies in.* They also…
Even when you’ve dressed inconspicuously, perfected the art of watching people out of the corner of your eye, mastered the skill looking like a student working on a school project, and basically become the awesome-sleuthy offspring of James Bond and Harriet the Spy… There will still always be one security guard who hasn’t met you,…
In July, the Freiburg Naturmuseum is opening “Wald,”a new children’s exhibit about the Black Forest. To give visitors a preview, the museum turned an empty programming space into a sneak peek gallery, showcasing the ideas, plans, and pieces that inspired and informed the new exhibit. From vintage photographs of old biology exhibits to the first,…
I’m in the process of designing plan for a museum doing visitor evaluation for the first time, and to paraphrase Sister Maria, I’m starting at the very beginning: audience demographics. But, is it a very fine place to start? I already have an educated guess about who this museum’s visitors are. I’ve seen museums like…
Earlier this summer, I conducted a short visitor survey that included basic demographic information. As I interviewed a couple whom I perceived to be a man and a woman, I asked them their zip codes, age ranges, and gender. At that last question, the individual I had initially read as male responded, Can I say…
Museums Askew 