Supporting The Design Minds in Redeveloping the Oregon Historical Society’s Cornerstone Exhibition
Client: The Design Minds, for the Oregon Historical Society | Location: Portland, OR
We used evaluation to support The Design Minds’ development of Experience Oregon, a new permanent exhibition at the Oregon Historical Society that emphasizes Oregon’s complex and distinctive history.
OVERVIEW
We partnered with The Design Minds to lead evaluation efforts in support of the design and development of the Oregon Historical Society’s new permanent exhibition, Experience Oregon.
The new exhibition presents Oregon as a place of physical and symbolic movement, allowing visitors to learn about the countless people, places, and events that have shaped Oregon into the complex and distinctive state it is today.
APPROACH
Our work on the exhibition spanned a year and crossed early and mid-stage development of the exhibition, including two rounds of testing:
Front-end testing: Interviews with museum visitors (including tourists and Oregon residents) to assess prior knowledge and feelings about Oregon, as well as early-stage messages and design concepts for the new exhibition, and
Formative testing: Observations of and interviews with museum visitors using exhibit prototypes, including full-scale renderings of graphics and text
Across rounds, we analyzed the results to help the designers and museum staff understand how visitors made sense of (and their comfort levels with) core exhibition messages.
CLIENT TAKEAWAYS
The staggered evaluations throughout design development provided timely feedback to make decisions and strategize about the direction of the exhibition and its interpretative strategies. For instance, we learned what attracted visitors to different exhibits or ideas and potential barriers to engagement related to Oregon’s social and physical (landscape) diversity.
Our efforts helped the designers and museum iterate and strengthen both individual exhibits and the holistic visitor experience in the exhibition.
