Can I Do That?

Knowing how visitors are using in-gallery interpretive tools and their effectiveness is vital to our work in the cultural sector. But, often times evaluation can be overwhelming and elusive. Where do you start, how do you do it, and most importantly, what do you do with what you find? This session brings together professionals from a variety of cultural institutions and departments, along with a professional evaluator, to consider a range of approaches to evaluating interpretive projects. From informal, DIY methods to partnering with internal or external evaluators, we will examine commonly considered questions and match them with evaluation methodologies. Panelists will share recently implemented examples such as iterative prototyping, behavioral mapping, visitor interviews, and gallery observations as well as consider other metrics that can be mined for evaluation such as analytics, visitor comments, and user submissions. Attendees will understand how to align their questions to methods, hear real-world examples of what worked for evaluating different types of in-gallery interactives, learn the limits and reliability of different methodologies, and how our museum teams integrated the results into better products. Speakers Session Leader : Margaret Sternbergh, Gallery Interpretation Manager, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston Co-Presenter : Kate Haley Goldman, Principal, Haley Goldman Consulting Co-Presenter : Jesse Heinzen, Multimedia Director, Minnesota Historical Society Co-Presenter : Miranda Kerr, Manager of Digital Learning, Shedd Aquarium MCN 2016 Presenting Sponsor: Piction New Orleans, LA