Audience Research - visitor wants

What do people want from a museum visit?

Visitors have many needs when they visit a museum. Through analysing a number of evaluation studies conducted at the Australian Museum we have found that visitors have a range of wants.

Experiences:

• hands-on (active) experiences
• to be able to use all their senses
• something to take away with them from their visit

Learning:

• to start from familiar concepts and things and move to unfamiliar
• to control their own experience and amount and depth of information they access
• to cater for all levels of learning, for different age groups and for adults and children
• exhibitions that help them learn something new

Exhibits:

• to touch objects and displays
• not too much reading
• computer interactives that enhance the exhibition and are not just 'button-pressing'
• to be able to zoom-in/get up close to objects and displays
• exhibits that are well maintained and working at all times
• staff on the floor to answer questions and bring the exhibition alive
• exhibits that are realistic
• places in exhibitions where they can sit down and 'take it in'
• exhibitions that encourage talking/sharing among the group

In our research with parents we have found that they have specific needs. Given that families make up around 60% of our audience they are a key group that we research. Parents want child appropriate exhibitions which:

• allow children to learn in an enjoyable way;
• provide new experiences, insights;
• complement school-based learning;
• are interactive and allow them to touch and experiment;
• have minimal reading;
• are at an appropriate height;
• provide sufficient installations to avoid queuing;
• cater for a range of ages and abilities; and
• keep parents entertained as well!

Other research reviewed a number of exhibition evaluations to see what information people wanted from the Museum's anthropological and natural history collections and I have blogged about that here.

Lynda Kelly
Last Updated: 26 March 2010