Observations on... Visitor Observations

In my previous post, I identified a few goals I had for moving forwards with my thesis project.
One of these goals was to complete one last round of visitor observations, preferably by
visiting the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC) on a weekend, as I had yet
to do so and I was curious as to whether the museum would attract more/different visitors
on the weekend than during the rest of the week.  I am pleased to report that not only was
I able to visit the RMSC on a Sunday, but there were indeed more visitors than on my 
previous two visits (the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2017 and a Friday morning
in mid-January 2018), which gave me the opportunity to make a number of important
observations about how people interact with the Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit and its content, as well as to better understand observations
I’d made on my previous visits.

My observations across all three visits led me to a few interesting and valuable conclusions
that I’d like to share here.

• The exhibit appears to attract 3 main visitor groups - parents (aged approximately 25-35)
  with young children (typically between the ages of 3 and 9), young people (late teens
  through early 20s) visiting in pairs or small groups, and older visitors (mid 40s
  through mid 60s) wandering around individually.  Visitors in the first two groups
  tend to vocally and obviously (i.e., point, gesture, or otherwise specifically indicate
  a piece of exhibit content) interact with the exhibit content, while older, individual
  visitors don’t.  However, none of the groups linger (and my site survey completed
  on my first visit clues me in to why).  This diversity in visitor groups and potential
  experiences highlights the importance of the exhibit space being adaptable and
  inclusive for all visitors, so everyone is comfortable and has an equal opportunity
  to explore and learn.  For example, visitors using mobility devices like wheelchairs
  and walkers can have difficulty viewing the dioramas, ironically, because of the
  steps in front of them that are necessary for younger visitors to better view the
  dioramas (this is a design element I have highlighted to be changed in the future).
• The gaps in visitor knowledge and in the information the exhibit provides
  overlap in places.  Parents with young children tend to have to field a lot of
  questions if their child is actively engaging with the exhibit content.  However,
  they are occasionally asked questions which they are unable to answer themselves,
  and when they turn to the (limited) text in some portions of the exhibit, they cannot
  find an answer.  This leads to one of three responses (“I don’t know,” a made-up answer,
  or pointing out another item or idea which they do know something about).
  While the exhibit text cannot possibly account for every question a curious three-year-old
  could ask, there needs to be more text that could potentially do so, or point the
  parents (or any visitor) in a direction for further research, and needs to be written
  in such a way that a parent could use it as a jumping off point to answer their child’s
  inquiry, or an older child could answer their question for themselves.
• And, perhaps most importantly for this project, people largely seem to refer
  to the peoples and cultures they are seeing in the exhibit in the past tense.
  While there is no clear indication from observing visitors as to whether or not
  this is due to the belief that these peoples/cultures no longer exist, or an a
  cknowledgement that they do not necessarily follow any traditional practices anymore.
  Regardless of the cause of this prevalent use of passive voice by the visitors,
  it underlines, at least in my mind, the importance to providing modern contextualization
  for the exhibit content, especially the dioramas, which are some of the only
  representations of actual people (in the sense that they depict persons, rather than
  just an object) in the exhibit, yet are also some of the most static.

These were just a few of the takeaways from the visitor observation portion of my project,
and I will consider all of these and more as I move closer to writing my recommendations
for the redesign of the exhibit.