Have you ever wondered how it is that so many of your visitors miss a prominent sign or installation – after all it’s in plain sight, right by the entrance? Chances are it’s in the Transition Zone.
Transition Zones were identified by Underhill [1] (see previous post on Underhill here) in his observational studies of retail spaces. When people first enter a store, they can be seen going through a reorientation and refocusing period – adjusting to their new environment, working out where to go next, and so on. In these few metres they are passing through the Transition Zone. In the Transition Zone, people are focused on where they are going, not where they are. Their immediate surroundings are, in effect, invisible to them.
I was reminded of the Transition Zone this week, as I am reading a doctoral thesis by Janine Fenton Sager [2], who applied Underhill’s methods to contemporary art exhibition spaces. Not surprisingly, the same Transition Zone effect applies – both at the entrance to museums as well as to individual exhibition spaces where there is a new environment and/or new topic to adjust to.
The South Australian Museum’s main entrance is a fairly typical example:
I had discussions with the Museum about the use of this atrium space about a year or so ago, not long after I had read about Underhill’s Transition Zones. While I have not spent a lot of time observing how this particular space is used, the Transition Zone concept would suggest that most visitors have psychologically ‘exited’ the atrium pretty much as soon as they have entered it. They can see the information desk and key decision points in the main lobby beyond (the shop, cafe and galleries all fan off this lobby), and are probably already thinking about where they might go first. Consequently I advised the museum to keep this space minimal, and that any signage in this space would be as good as invisible to most visitors, at least on their way in to the museum. (I notice some brochure racks have crept in since then, and I wonder how well and at what stage of the visit they are used . . . perhaps they are picked up on exiting?)
The large iron meteorite on display in here is an interesting one – it’s an impressive object and possibly sufficiently unusual that visitors may be stopped by it. However it may be more readily noticed on the way out than the way in, and I also wonder what role children play in whether the meteorite is noticed and stopped at. (I suspect children are less susceptible to Transition Zone effects but I’m not sure if this has actually been studied or observed).
These nuances aside, the lesson here is not to position important orientation or introductory signage right by the entrance – it’s too close to the Transition Zone and will end up being missed by the majority of your visitors.
[1] Underhill, P. (1999). Why we buy – the science of shopping. New York: Simon & Schuster.
[2] Sager, J. F. (2008). The Contemporary Visual Art Audience: Space, Time and a Sideways Glance (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis). University of Western Sydney.