Front-end and Formative Evaluation for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s Exhibition Residency

Experience Design Research
Written By Cathy Sigmond

Client: Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center | Location: Washington, DC

 
 

We led iterative front-end and formative evaluations for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s upcoming exhibition residency at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History—a precursor to the opening of its permanent gallery.

OVERVIEW

In 2024 and 2025, we partnered with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) to lead front-end and formative evaluations to support the development of a new exhibition for APAC’s upcoming residency at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH). The exhibition, and its related programming, centers the overlooked stories and legacy of the earliest wave of Filipino migrant workers to the United States.

APPROACH

We took a qualitative approach to both rounds of evaluation: 

  • For the front-end evaluation, we led 26 in-depth interviews with 43 NMAH visitors, where we focused on understanding visitors’ baseline knowledge of the people, places, and stories to be featured in APAC’s exhibition as well as visitors’ reactions to the exhibition’s core objects and stories.  

  • For the formative evaluation, we led 20 hands-on testing sessions with 31 NMAH visitors to gauge their reactions to prototypes of seven key exhibits from the APAC exhibition, ranging from the introduction label to a large map wall to a digital interactive. 

Following each round of evaluation, we facilitated a collaborative reflection session for APAC where we reflected on the findings and shared ideas for what to explore in future evaluations.

CLIENT TAKEAWAYS

Both rounds of evaluation were highly generative for the APAC team. From the front-end evaluation, for instance, we learned that NMAH visitors were highly curious about the exhibition’s stories and objects, yet lacked baseline knowledge and needed support and scaffolding to engage deeply with core concepts; this feedback translated directly into updated label text and interactive experiences which we tested in the formative evaluation, and even a refreshed exhibition title. Formative evaluation findings were encouraging because the objects and stories again had deep emotional resonance for many NMAH visitors; yet, findings also pointed to ways to refine and improve each of the prototype exhibits tested, such as by clarifying the key message and simplifying the graphic design of the map wall.  

All in all, both rounds of evaluation with NMAH visitors set the APAC team up for success in continuing to develop the exhibition for the residency in an audience-centered way, ahead of its opening and subsequent summative evaluation in fall 2025.

Cathy Sigmond

Cathy brings many years of experience in education and experience design to her role as Head of Strategy at Kera Collective. 

Having previously worked in a variety of educational settings, Cathy is driven by her constant fascination and delight at how people make discoveries about the familiar and the unfamiliar. 

Cathy loves helping to shape experiences that spark curiosity and make a difference in people’s lives. She particularly enjoys the rapid, iterative nature of design-based research and the deep insights that come from qualitative research, especially on projects exploring interactions with the digital and built environments. 

Cathy shares her passion for experience design research widely and regularly guest lectures for graduate programs, including the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Exhibition and Experience Design Program and the Pratt Institute’s School of Information. Cathy served as the co-chair of the Museum Computer Network’s Human-Centered Design special interest group from 2018-2021.

Outside of work, you can usually find Cathy playing soccer, thrifting, or making her way through her large cookbook collection. 

Cathy’s favorite museum experiences are immersive; she will always vividly remember walking through the giant heart at the Franklin Institute, being surrounded by birds at the Peabody Essex Museum, and hearing centuries-old instruments come to life at the Museum of Musical Instruments. 

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