It all started with a mysterious bear. . .
But before I explain, first a little background: Last week I was at the Interpretation Australia national conference, Enriching the Visitor Experience, in Brisbane. The opening keynote was Experienceology‘s Stephanie Weaver. As the author of Creating Great Visitor Experiences, she had plenty to share about the role of interpretation and storytelling in crafting memorable and meaningful visitor experiences.
So back to the bear – Stephanie’s museum career started out at the Chicago Children’s Museum, which at the time was located in North Pier. Consistently in evaluation and focus groups, children kept on mentioning that “the bear” was one of their favourite exhibits. Good to know – except staff at the museum had no idea what exhibit the kids were talking about! There were no bears, teddy bears, pictures of bears, or anything remotely bear-related in the Museum. So what was this mysterious bear exhibit?
It turns out the solution wasn’t in the museum at all. As it happens, North Pier was at one end of an atrium mall, and this mall had a toy store. And across the atrium this toy store had strung up a large model of the “Ernest the balancing bear” child’s toy that cycled across and back on its tightrope. Although this display had nothing to do with the Museum – they didn’t manage it, they had no control over it – it was nonetheless perceived by visitors to be an integral part of the Children’s Museum experience. In fact, when exhibit staff proudly proclaimed the “bear mystery” finally solved, the Museum’s ticketing staff told them “oh yeah, we get all sorts of complaints when that bear isn’t working”.
From this, Stephanie said she learned two important lessons about visitor experiences:
- The extent of the visitor experience as perceived by visitors – what I’ve called the “experience footprint” here – is much bigger than you might think, and may well include factors beyond your control (but which you still need to think about).
- Front-line staff often have a better idea of what’s happening on the exhibit floor than exhibition staff or management.
I’ll share a few more insights from this and other sessions over the coming days and weeks.
Well, another interpretation of this might be that the museum’s exhibits were BORING in comparison with the bear
Indeed it could be John 🙂
But that would then raise the question – why are people paying to enter the museum instead of just going to see the bear for free?
It could be because parents want their children to take in some of the more “worthy” content offered by the museum – the experiential equivalent of eating your greens.
Another possibility is that there is something about the physical context of the bear (in a large atrium, not competing for attention among an array of other exhibits) that made it more readily spring to mind. There is some research that suggests that larger, more isolated exhibits may be more easily recalled if visitors are asked to think of their “favourite” exhibit. (Visitors may be recalling the exhibit that was the most salient, or gives the strongest mental image, rather than a “favourite” per se).
All good food for thought!
Regan, what a great summary of my keynote. I love the idea of an experience footprint. And John, that’s a great possible point. The kids in the interviews talked about lots of things they loved about the museum at the time: the water exhibit, the bubbles, the legos, etc. But when we kept hearing “the bear” we had to investigate, hence the story I told.