Dear Vanessa (Intern)
and Kaci (Public Relations)
While it is easy to collect data via a comment card (much easier than
conducting exit interviews, for example), analyzing the data and
interpreting such data is not easy.
1. The sample is biased in terms of who will respond
Even if you give a survey to each person who enters, the ones most likely to
respond are the extremes, wither extremely happy or extremely unhappy about
something.
2. The data is incomplete
You don't know what segment of your population the respondent represents. A
few comments about a particular service or exhibit might be coming from a
specific segment of your population, and a small one at that. Or it may be
a majority opinion... the point is, you just don't know.
3. If you ask for ratings about something you don't know if visitors are
interpreting your question the same way you are. Nor do you know what they
mean by their ratings.
So am I saying don't do comment cards? Nope, these are a useful first step.
If something comes up that looks important do a more strongly controlled
study (like low ratings for a particular service or exhibit) where you can
get more complete information face-to-face with a known sample of your
audience. A few strong comments on cards can have an influence far greater
than they should. Same thing with converting these to descriptive
statistics ("20% of the cards said..." easily is misinterpreted as 20% of
our visitors said...)
And if there is an aspect of your operation (like visitor satisfaction or
understanding of an exhibit's message) that will be a part of major
decision-making (like your marketing plan or allocation of people resources,
or exhibit decisions), you'll definitely want to work out a more
full-fledged audience study.
Good luck!!
.Linda Wilson
Visitor Studies and Evaluation
Shedd Aquarium, Chicago, IL 60605
PH (312) 692 3261
FAX (312) 939 8677
[log in to unmask]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Die Valkure [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 1999 1:24 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: evaluation: visitor surveys
>
> Fellow List Members:
>
> The University of Oregon Museum of Art (UOMA) is looking to create a
> comment card for its visitors. At present, only participants in
> educational programming are given exit surveys. We want to create
> something similar for visitors who are just coming to see exhibits. If
> anyone has one that they can share with us we would be greatly
> appreciated.
> Either email the questions(offlist!!!), fax it to 541-346-0976 c/o Kaci
> Manning, or send it to: Kaci Manning, Public Relations, Museum of Art,
> 1223 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403.
>
> Thanx in advance for your help!
>
> Vanessa
>
>
>
>
> ********************************************************************
> Vanessa L. Ward
> Laurel Award Intern
> The University of Oregon Museum of Art (UOMA)
> [log in to unmask]
> http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~valkyri
> ********************************************************************
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