LECTURE IIIa – AUDIENCE
Wednesday, July 13
GENE’S HALF – DEMOGRAPHICS, MOTIVATION, EVALUATION 9:15-11:00
TERESA’S HALF – WORKING WITH COMMUNITY 11:15 – 1:00
I. INTRO
Exhibits are a medium of communication.
Formula for successful communication: D – P – R
The formula works in reverse: Start with Receiver
Who is our audience?
Why do they come?
What do they expect?
What do they do when they are here? And why?
(solicit input)
II. WHO IS OUR AUDIENCE?
Define audience in three ways:
 Demographics: census statistics – age, gender, race, income,
family size, etc.
 Geographics: where they come from, where they work & live
 Psychographics: motivations, beliefs, wants and needs,
behavioral profile
The better you know audience, the better you’ll be able to reach
them.
A good museum surveys audience every so often just to find out
who’s coming. FMNH (Chicago) did a major survey in 1991;
Shedd Aquarium 1998. Similar results. Some findings (DON’T
WRITE DOWN):
Demographics:
80% white (both)
50% first-time visitors (both)
Groups with children: FMNH 1/3; Shedd ½ (summer survey)
College degrees (adults): FMNH 1/2; Shedd 2/3
Males: FMNH 50%; Shedd 45%
Geographics:
Both drew heavily from surrounding area
(Shedd: metro 1/3; Midwest 1/2; other 1/5)
Average visit: FMNH 2 hours
On and on. NOT IMPORTANT to know FMNH vs. Shedd
IS IMPORTANT to know YOUR audience
What do you do with this info? Extreme example:
Winterthur: 2/3 female, avg age 60. Monster Truck exhibit.
1)
Decline – not our audience.
2)
Accept, shape content to appeal to audience
3)
Accept, use exhibit to reach new audience
(Reality: Winterthur is Decorative Arts)
(Art of Motorcycle? TMLMTBGB at SMM?)
Demographics and geographics are different for every museum,
but in general:
 Overall, American museums appeal to educated, middle- and
upper-class families
 Minorities under-represented, probably due to education /
income variables
NOTE: “educated” doesn’t mean “expert.” Visitors are smart
enough to handle new info, but, the info IS NEW.
Psychographics – interests, beliefs, motivations – tend to be
uniform
Value learning (but are NOT experts)
Seek challenge / unique experience
Doing something worthwhile with leisure time
Important to distinguish cause and effect:
College doesn’t make you go to museums
Rather, placing value on learning makes people pursue
education, formally and informally
III. WHY DO THEY VISIT?
So, people come to museums to learn, right? Depends on what you
mean by “learn”
 Acquiring facts (formal education) – no. Books, web, TV
better.
 Experience, making it real, getting inspired (informal ed.) – yes.
Marketing perspective: what want or need does museum fulfill?
Leisure time
Typical museum visitor: wants to do something worthwhile w/
leisure, and considers educational activity worthwhile
HOWEVER – primary, proximal motivation is always: SOCIAL
OUTING
SMM survey: top three reasons for coming:
 safe, inexpensive social outing
 see and do things you can’t do anywhere else
 hands-on, experiential learning
The museum is just the setting; the time spent together is the true
purpose.
IV. WHAT DO THEY DO WHEN HERE?
Visitor agenda: They come with a group; they want to BE with
their group – interacting, talking, moving through together, seeing
and experiencing together.
Rand’s Bill of Rights: Puts exhibit in context of entire museum
visit.
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

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


Comfort
Orientation
Welcome
Enjoyment
Socializing
Respect for Audience
Clear, accurate info; feedback
Learning styles
Choice & Control
Appropriate challenges
 Leave revitalized
That’s all primary (bottom Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). Only
after we have accomplished that do we have a “teachable moment”
– our goal meets visitor’s desire.
V. LEARNING
Because they value learning, they would like to learn something,
informally. So, how do people learn in museums?
Entire classes dedicated to museum education. FIRST BIG
POINT: Lots of theories about learning and education in general.
[WHOSE IS THIS?] Summary from eduweb?
Knowledge: external and objective vs. internal and subjective
Learning: fed from outside vs. built from inside
All of these happen, all the time. Appropriate in different
circumstances. (Constructivist stoplight.)
Nature of exhibit medium: Exhibit is FREE CHOICE – visitors
may skip components, see them in any order. Non-linear. Variety
of behavior: skimming, in-depth. Avg. time spent: 12 to 20
minutes.
Given that museum visit is self-directed, non-linear, it’s harder to
do left-hand side (at least, not all the time). Flavor of the month:
Meaning-making (Constructivism) – build your own knowledge,
incorporate it into your understanding.
SECOND BIG POINT: different learning styles (Gardner article)
Linguistic (reading)
Logical / mathematical
Spatial
Musical
Bodily / kinesthetic (touching, manipulating)
Interpersonal (discussing)
Intrapersonal (musing)
Looking more broadly, there’s McCarthy’s taxonomy of learning
styles:
Imaginative learners (social)
Analytic learners (factual)
Common-sense learners (discovery)
Experiential learners (trial-and-error)
Memorizing list not as important as realizing different people have
different preferences:
How they take in information (Gardner)
How they process it (McCarthy)
A good exhibit must hit as many of these as possible.
VI. HOW DO WE KNOW IF WE’VE SUCCEEDED?
Evaluation:
Front-end or concept testing
Formative and prototyping
Remedial and summative
Methods:
Questionnaires
Closed
Open
Models, drawings, prototypes
Timing and tracking
Follow-up
MUSEUM ATTITUDE TOWARD VISITORS:
Doering’s vocabulary:
Customer – commercial transaction
Audience – passive receptacle
Visitor – distant, unaffected
Guest – welcome and accommodating, but still in charge
“Friend” – equals. FMNH labels