In this paper, Britt Raphling from the Adler Planetarium discusses how evaluation can be used to help focus interactive multimedia options so that exhibits meet both content objectives and visitor experience objectives. This paper outlines an "ideal" evaluation process tailored specifically to the challenges of developing interactive multimedia elements in museums. It requires exhibit developers, programmers, visitors and the evaluator to participate in a series of five steps designed to ensure the most effective possible outcome.
In this article, Annette Noschka-Roos discusses a study of a computer-supported information system (CIS) touch-screen interactive in the "New Energy Techniques" gallery at the Deutsches Museum. The objective of the study was to gather systematic data on how the medium is used by visitors. Noschka-Roos provides key findings from the study.
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Annette Noschka-RoosVisitor Studies Association
The Educational Film Center will complete production of a science, engineering, and technology careers exhibit and informal science education project for use in science museums, libraries, schools, and community locations. The twelve additional interactive and linear career profiles to be produced under this grant will bring the total number of careers available in a fully interactive mode to thirty-two. Users will be able to explore each of these careers with first person video profiles of people in science and engineering and animated/reality video simulations of work experiences in these fields. The exhibit also with provide guidance to help users make decisions about education and career choices and will include a database of information about approximately 200 additional science and math-based professions. The project also will undertake the development and testing of eight permanent model Family Outreach Science Career Education Centers in eight cities. These centers will be based on and will expand upon the experience the project had in their earlier model Parent Outreach Science Career Program. Utilization support will be provided through special target leader guides, presentations and workshops at national and regional meetings of user organizations and groups, and a SETQuest bulletin board and e-mail network for the exchange of user science career programming. This project is a collaborative effort among four organizations: The Educational Film Center (EFC) is responsible for management of the project and for the development of production of the software and the documentary video profiles; COMAP is responsible for selecting and hiring content consultants, for formative and summative evaluation, and will jointly market and distribute the material with EFC; The New York Hall of Science is responsible for the exhibit kiosk and graphics, the design and development of the workbook and museum installation print components of the project, and will serve as principal test site for the exhibit; and the AAAS is coordinating the design, implementation, and testing of parent outreach program. All of the organizations will be involved in presentations and dissemination of project information to the informal and formal education communities.
The Computer Museum will develop two 2500 sq. ft. computer-based exhibits the "Virtual Fishtank: Splashing Into Complex Systems". One exhibit will be installed permanently in the Computer Museum and the other will travel nationally for three to five years. These exhibits will use computer modeling of fish to introduce the public to new ideas about complex systems science and demonstrate the central concept that complex behaviors and patterns can emerge from simple interactions among simple rules. Visitors will spend eight to ten minutes designing their own fish at one of the ten FishBuilder computer stations. As they make decisions, they will be able to observe the effects of their rule selections on a computer display. When satisfied with their design, visitors can then "tag" their fish by placing their initials on fish tails and launch them in the central "fishtank". Large projection screens will encircle visitors in a dramatic simulation of an underwater aquarium environment. Visitors will observe and analyze how the few simple rules imbedded in the design of individual fish give rise to complex behaviors and patterns in the entire ecosystem. This exhibit draws on research conducted at MIT's Media Lab, The Computer Museum, and the New England Aquarium and will be able to reach people with a variety of learning styles. It anticipated completion date is March, 1998 for the TCM's version and the traveling version will begin it's national tour in September, 1998.
The Educational Film Center (EFC) is developing a science, engineering, and technology careers exhibit for distribution to science museums and technology centers. The core of the exhibit kiosk, with related career graphics surrounds, is SET/QUEST, an interactive multimedia program for both Macintosh and PC/Windows using CD-Rom as the full motion video source. Teens and preteens will enter an interactive exploration of thirty careers with first person video profiles of people in science and engineering; animated/reality video simulations of a work experience in these fields, decision screens, and a database of over 200 more science and math-based professions. The documentary profiles, database, and a personal interest career match component will also be developed in alternative media formats (video, audio, print) for broad distribution to community and youth education networks, schools, and libraries. Specific emphasis in this project is being placed on reaching and attracting female, minority, and disabled youth. A parent outreach component has been developed and will be implemented by the Directorate of Education & Human Resources Programs of AAAS. The concept of the parent effort is to work directly with and through the national offices of four major national organizations with different institutional community roots -- Science Museums, Public Libraries, Schools, and Community Based Organizations -- to involve parents and families with SET Project materials and to provide them with information with which they can foster their children's pursuit of science and math education and careers in these fields. Initial efforts will be conducted in 18 cities. The project is a collaborative endeavor among three organizations: The Educationa l Film Center which will be responsible for management and development/production of the software and documentary video profiles; The New York Hall of Science which will be responsible for the exhibit kiosk and graphics, will design and develop the student workbook and user installation print, will serve as the principal test site for the exhibit, and will advise on software, interactive multimedia design, and installation options; and COMAP which will be responsible for direct involvement of the Advisory Board, for selecting and hiring content consultants, for assuring the accuracy of the science and math content, for formative and summative evaluation, and for developing and preparing community leader and school users guides for publication. Stephen Rabin, President of EFC, will serve as PI for the project.
The videodisc-based exhibit, the Powers of Ten in Time, will allow museum visitors to explore the unseen world of natural change - events that occur too quickly or too slowly to be perceived. Through the use of a touch screen and interactive software, users will be able to, in effect, speed up or slow down timeto witness changes that lie outside of the limits of human time perception. Visitors will see scenes such as a forest recovering after a fire, a wall of earth crumbling from erosion, tides coming in and out, the intricate motions of complex machinery and molecules colliding and reacting to produce fire. The videodiscs will contain more than 100 short video segments depicting a wide range of phenomena. We will use time-lapse footage, slow-motion clips and animations to show changes occurring over time periods form 300,000,000 to femtoseconds. Not only will museum visitors be able to watch these video segments at their own pace and in order they choose, they will also be able to learn more about such phenomena through on- screen textual and graphical explanations. The goal of the project is to engage museum visitors with captivating photographic segments, explain the phenomena shown with supplemental text and graphics, and stimulate them to look at the world in a new way - not just with their eyes, but with their minds and imaginations.
"Atmospheric Explorations: Participatory, Computer-Based Simulations of the Weather" is a collaborative project of Augsburg College and the Science Museum of Minnesota. The purpose of the project is to enhance the interest and skills of museum visitors and students in science by providing a highly interactive exhibit environmental that allows the users considerable freedom in exploring topics in meteorology relevant to their everydays lives. The exhibits will be designed to accommodate a gender- and racially-diverse audience of national scope.
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William JaspersonDavid VenneJ. Newlin