In this paper, Jeff Bonner of the St. Louis Science Center discusses the merits of formal versus naturalistic evaluation within the museum context. Bonner also presents the approach and findings of a two-part study designed to compare the results of these two evaluation approaches. They compared the the results of a formal analysis of the holding power, ease of use, readability of text, and overall enjoyability of nine exhibits with a naturalistic study focused on how one volunteer, two part-time employees and a staff supervisor viewed the same exhibits.
The Exploding Optic Incredible was an experiment in expanding the boundaries of art and music with science and technology. Ostensibly a multi-media rock concert as a fund raiser for Marshall Barnes' drug free creativity efforts, it took Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable concept of the 1960s into unchartered territory driven by Marshall's inspiration through discussions with Omni magazine's Dick Teresi and Pamela Weintraub and Gene Youngblood's book, Expanded Cinema. Marshall incorporated 1970s era slide and film projection light show effects, with dance lights, massive strobes, spotlights, and big screen video projection that showed customized and original video special effects while bands performed, and music videos in-between accompanied by lighting effects. The first multi-media rock concert of the 1990s, the January 18, 1990 event at the Newport Music Hall was also a test for the public's reaction to over stimulation through sight and sound, the results leading to exploration and ultimate creation of psychoactive entertainment technology later that year and the formation of new technological architectures for entertainment and learning that have yet to be presented but exist in design form.
The Science Museum of Minnesota will develop a series of "experiment benches" that are to be an unique feature of "labworks," a major new hall of physical science and technology. The small bench-top laboratory exhibits will allow visitors to create their own experiments and to become informally but directly involved in the experimental process. The target audience is junior highschool students, especially those who come as individuals and who are repeat visitors. Selected students will be trained as interns and will be paid to act as mentors for visitors. The project will include a published report, "a recipe book" for dissemination, and a subsequent conference of exhibit developers from other science museums.