This section contains examples from exhibits for which I either served as a team member or team leader. I believe the most successful exhibits result from team efforts, where each member brings his or her own perspective and expertise. Most of the way I approach exhibit development I learned through working with the staff at Exhibit A Design in Brooklyn. They taught me how to brainstorm ideas, keep to a schedule, and collaborate.
In particular, Brenda Cowan, now head of the exhibit design program at FIT, introduced me to the process of using a card sorting exercise to identify potential exhibit themes. In this process everyone on the team has the opportunity to participate in what is basically a stream of consciousness word association exercise. Participants respond in one word to questions about the exhibit topic, while one member of the team writes the responses on note cards, using one card for each word response. The questions should be related to possible audience responses, assumptions, perspectives etc. The participants then sort the cards, looking for connections between the words. In this way particular themes emerge from the general exhibit topic and in ideal reflect the interests of potential visitors as well as the knowledge of the exhibit team. The card sorting exercise proved especially effective for the exhibit “Down Freedom’s Main Line” because we had previously conducted an audience survey and were able to shape our questions accordingly.
In general, museums should provide more time for exhibit development and assessment than they often do. Today’s best practices emphasize the need for visitor empowerment and engagement. One of the best ways to insure this is to utilize a variety of means to gather information about your audience and community prior to making major decisions about the interpretive direction of an exhibit. It is also important to test exhibit elements during development to make sure that the design fits the purpose. Too often exhibits still sacrifice user friendliness for aesthetics and/or expertise. This is another reason for exhibit development to be a true team effort. Exhibits affect the entire life of a museum, from the visitor services staff to the maintenance staff. They should not be created in an academic vacuum if you want them to have life.
The Museum Doctor 