In this talk, Cathy Sigmond explores how formative evaluation supports the process of creating audience-centered exhibitions. Cathy covers the ins and outs of formative evaluation for exhibition development, from core principles to strategies for doing formative evaluation in all types of museums. 

About two years ago, my colleague Amanda Krantz wrote about the problematic assumption that museums are inherently “trusted” institutions. I was recently considering how this idea of “trust” connects to other mythology surrounding museums, including the idea that they are the Switzerland of non-profit organizations—“neutral”—an idea that was brought to the forefront in 2017 with the Museums are Not Neutral Campaign created by LaTanya Autry and Mike Murawski. In a 2023 MuseumNext post, the author quotes Murawski as saying “Museums have the potential to be relevant, socially-engaged spaces in our communities. Yet, too often, they strive to remain ‘above’ the political and social issues that affect our lives – embracing a myth of neutrality.”

Museum educators, does any of this sound familiar?

You care deeply about making a positive difference in museum audiences’ lives, yet...

• You are pulled in many directions by competing needs and agendas

• You have limited resources and capacity

• You need to raise money to fund your programs

• You feel you are having a positive impact but you have no evidence, and 

• You have been told to consider expanding or scaling up your program

If any of these are true of your museum program or department, you probably need a logic model.

Interviewing visitors is a valuable way to gain insight into what they think of your museum, either during or as they finish their visit. Their feedback can also help shape the development of future exhibitions and programs. I’ve had the opportunity to interview many museum visitors onsite at museums, and I personally really love chatting with them. I get to meet a lot of great people and hear so many unique and diverse perspectives. To help out anyone interested in trying out interviews, I would like to share a few tips as a seasoned interviewer!

At the Visitor Studies Association (VSA) conference in July 2024, I co-presented with two museum exhibition practitioners about questioning the status quo of exhibition evaluation practices. We each approached the session with questions and skepticism about traditional summative evaluation for exhibitions. The big question I explored was: Are summative evaluations worth the cost (money and time)?

We have seen a surge in requests for audience research projects over the last couple of years. All types of museums, from science to history to botanic gardens, are asking for studies that can help them understand more about their visitors. And with this flurry of audience research projects, we have been doing a lot of thinking about museums and their audiences.

A common mantra of mine is that museums can’t be all things to all people. For a museum to have real impact in the world, it must prioritize the audiences that are most important to it, construct a clear picture of who they are, and allocate resources to support those people.

With increasing conversations around artificial intelligence (AI) and how we can use AI tools in our work, I constantly find myself apprehensive of what new waves of AI technology (like generative AI) are offering. Don’t get me wrong though—I’m all for technological advancement and I fully understand that AI is already around us, but I’ve been finding it hard to fully get behind the usage of AI in mainstream fields. Most of my apprehension comes from ethical and justice issues that, in my opinion, organizations and companies are ignoring. My main issues with incorporating AI technology into client work can be summarized into the following categories. 

In my last post, I asked how museums might create meaningful and fulfilling community partnerships and I offered my musings to this question. This month, I return to briefly consider a few activities and techniques geared toward establishing and strengthening community partnerships. Again, as museum staff, how do you “build genuine, reciprocal relationships with your visitors and local organizations? How do you work toward a common goal with your local community?” Below, I explore how using metaphors and walk-and-talk conversations might help those involved in community partnerships (primarily museum staff and community partners) communicate the more intangible aspects of “community” and ground their collaborations in shared understandings.

Design is always on my mind. It’s no secret to my friends and colleagues that I love using my skills as an evaluator to support designers in creating meaningful experiences for people. I get excited when we work with experience designers to see how visitors make sense of concepts through exploratory front-end evaluation, lead visitors in prototyping sessions to refine exhibits and messages as part of formative evaluations, and measure the impact of visitors’ experiences in multi-method summative evaluations.

The idea that “you can’t be all things to all people” can feel paradoxical. Few people would disagree, but when push comes to shove, it can be hard to fully embrace. Museums, in particular, have a hard time surrendering to this notion because of their desire to be seen as inclusive by providing something for everyone; the need to attract funding, grants, and donations; and an over-reliance on using attendance numbers as markers of success.

I’ve been a fan of collaborative research ever since I learned about it when working on my dissertation on the role of Whiteness in the gallery teaching practices of White art museum educators (like myself). Initially, I was trying to study Whiteness through a traditional approach, where I developed study questions, recruited participants (other White museum educators), designed instruments, and analyzed data on my own. But several months into data collection, my findings just weren’t addressing my questions with the richness that I expected. I finally realized: I need to examine Whiteness by critically examining it in myself.

Have you ever found yourself staring at a mountain of qualitative data, feeling like you're lost without a map? Whether it’s transcripts from interviews or focus groups, written responses from a survey or assessment, or entries in a diary study, figuring out where to start can feel daunting.

In this article, Katie Chandler and co-authors Jen Kretser and Stephanie Ratcliffe explain how early audience research and evaluation shaped The Wild Center's strategies and messaging as it developed a new exhibition focused on climate change solutions.

My colleague recently asked for suggestions on resources to share with a client about audience research. We had no shortage of suggestions for resources about conducting audience research, but we lacked resources about the value of audience research for museum practitioners.

Perhaps one of the most glaring examples of orientalism and otherization in Western art museums is the omittance of nuance, detail, and breadth in exhibitions featuring objects, art, and ideas originating from non-Western cultures. Much of this stems from orientalism. When grand art galleries have curated exhibitions with varying degrees of complexity and specificities all around European art, but just one section set aside for an exhibit that checks off the DEAI box, it is obvious that museums not only have a problem with orientalism, but that their attempts to grow beyond the confines of an imperialist and orientalist past are weak. Here are some ways for art and history museums to confront orientalist approaches when curating exhibitions and galleries on non-Western art.

After many years of appreciating from afar, I finally visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA, last month. Named after its founder, the Gardner Museum is a marvel of different artistic movements displayed through its collection and architecture.

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many design firms and museums to prototype early versions of new exhibits with visitors. Prototyping helps us understand what works well about an exhibit and what doesn’t, and the results guide us in refining exhibits so they are more engaging and effective. Some of my favorite examples include testing out a tactile map of a large National Recreation Area; a hands-on airplane seat-building challenge; interactives about climate change; a Sims-style urban-planning experience; and, most recently, a 10-foot tall Plinko-like game about natural resources.

When thinking about their audiences, museums too often hyperfocus on what to provide for audiences or how to attract them. They think of exhibitions, programs, marketing efforts, and membership drives. However, before jumping to what the museum plans to do or how it will do it, it’s wiser and more helpful to take a step back and consider why doing it is important and who it is for. By thinking through both the “why” and the “who,” museums can locate their purpose and make deliberate decisions with their audiences in mind, rather than heading down a rabbit hole with no clear direction.

Observations are an important tool for evaluating museum programs from the perspective of a third party. Observations can reveal important dynamics and surprising ways a program may be addressing its intended outcomes. Observing programs in museums brings their own set of considerations, considering their logistical variations and museums’ history of exclusion.