Chris:

Here at the Minnesota Historical Society we are very dedicated to evaluating
our exhibits, programs, and museum.  There is one on staff visitor studies
professional (me), and we also sometimes contract out projects. We take part
in front-end, formative, and summative evaluations of our exhibits.  We also
do an exit survey twice a year regarding the overall experience.  We use a
variety of methods:  attendance, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups,
tracking, timing, etc.  We use volunteers and/or staff to do interviews or
distribute the paper questionnaires.  We do not use a kiosk due to
self-selection of respondents to do such surveys.  We are looking into using
the web for research, but are struggling with the methodology.  During
formative evaluation we test exhibit components.

Anyhow, that is a quick overview of what we do.  There are a lot of great
books out there on program and exhibit evaluation.  If you want to find out
more about evaluation contact the Committee on Audience Research and
Evaluation (C.A.R.E) a standing professional committee of AAM or the Visitor
Studies Association.  Both of these organizations have e-mails.

If there are any further questions about evaluation at the Minnesota
Historical Society or evaluation in general anyone can feel free to contact
me.

Jennifer E. Lanning
Audience Research Specialist
Minnesota Historical Society
[log in to unmask]
(651)297-3341


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Noessel [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 5:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Evaluation Methods


I am (also) interested to know how the museums on the list evaluate the
effectiveness of their exhibits and of the museum as a whole.

Do you use ticket sales? Do you distribute polls or questionnaires? If so,
on paper, in a kiosk, or on the web? Do you usability test your exhibits?

Chris Noessel
graduate student
Interaction Design Institute Ivrea
http://www.interaction-ivrea.it

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