After reading Part 1 of this book review on Interpreting Heritage A Guide to Planning and Practice, by Steve Slack, we hope you are ready for more insight, so let’s jump in.
We were just about to delve into deciding on the HOW you are going to select interpretive devices by merging the WHO, WHAT and WHY of your interpretive plan – what author Steve Slack refers to as the funnelling stage.
Formative Market Research
Steve provides us with a practical example of how formative market research can play a key role in this merging process. The What and Who project he focuses on is the re-interpretation of a Roman fort historic site with families as the target visitor. Why: to engage a new target audience and position the fort as only one component of a wider visit - exploring the entire heritage site landscape that encompasses the fort. Market research techniques for the 12 families involved:
· a table-top exercise probing visitors’ expectations of a site visit along with prior site knowledge,
· self-complete booklets to record responses to existing experiences,
· annotating a paper representation of the site with likes and dislikes,
· a voting activity around proposed interventions, where images of potential devices were shown and responses were recorded, and
· focus groups that expressed how they enjoyed learning together and how they were expecting “physically interactive, hands-on opportunities, punchy text and eye-catching design.”
While the family’s learning expectations were no big surprise from the focus group, there was important feedback about the welcome, catering offered, and interpretive devices experienced. As well was the fact that families felt the need to ask for permission to play safely at the site. For EID these are all critical elements of the visitor experience and need to be considered when designing an interpretive plan. In many projects we encounter that want to cater to families, the site has the research information but doesn’t deliver on the experience! In this case research drove design to accomplish visitor friendly positive directions:
new periscopes inside the fort allowed visitors of all heights to peer onto the ruins on the rest of the site to promote exploration,
life-sized Roman characters were positioned at various stops supporting a variety of play styles
·a spy game was designed to entice families to move from location to location by linking a series of interactive games, instead of following panels around the site, and
Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
A common approach is a self-led experience, which means the visitor sets the pace of their visit and they call the shots of what they consume. However, it is really up to the site to provide the options, suggested routes and range of opportunities/interactions, just like in a choose-your-own-adventure book, where the visitor has the sense of control.
When encouraging the visitors to make their own way through the heritage experience is the goal, Slack presents tried and true techniques. The interpretive service needs to supply a range of ways into the topic for different kinds of visitors. Techniques such as specimens, quotations, images, textual labels, storybooks, hand held informative “paddleboards,” to interactive lift-up flaps can all be employed.
“Unled, open-route experiences “may” (our emphasis) need the cleverest and the most cunning of plans of all, even when staff might be present to help frame or introduce the experience.”
Sorry Steve we don’t agree with the word “may” and feel these experiences DO need cunning and this should be the time when interpreters put their experiential visitor coaching into high gear. The design of do-it-yourself (DIY) guest experiences is the desired way NOW, and we need to improve our skills at doing this. EID follows the book Interpretive Design and the Dance of Experience’s lead on the concept of invitation stations and setting up ways for visitors to practice awareness skills prior to going on unled explorations.
With the Interpreting Heritage book, author Steve Slack solidly points out the opportunity is to enhance the blank canvas the visitor finds in front of them at the site and to use tools to stimulate their curiosity by using maps, subtle prompts and encouragements without obtrusive panels. We have found the book Earth Education: A New Beginning by Steve Van Matre, to be chock full of these type of engaging leadership tools and guidelines.
Rainbow chips Earthwalk activity Credit Mike Mayer
The interpretive principle of making your site come alive is well described by the example from the State Library of New South Wales in Australia where they activated archival documents - letters written between children fathers serving during World War I (WWI). “While the 100-year-old letters penned in children’s handwriting are incredibly touching as first-hand accounts, they can only have a certain impact behind glass in an exhibition case.” State library staff created a typical Australian kitchen during WWI and visitors were invited to take a seat to hear the letters read aloud in a recording done by the Australian Theatre for Young People. Steve reported that this was a moving and meaningful experience especially because of “…the genuine affection from the hugs and kisses which fill the pages.”
Orientation & Extended Interpretation
Before Slack supplies the reader with a survey of interpretive devices at one’s disposal, he addresses the important but often forgotten role of visitor orientation within the interpretive sphere. “…Give them some hints about what they might experience, where to go, how to understand the site and even a suggestion of what to do first.” He provides a range of statements often used at site welcome desks, and asks the reader how you would react to them and how they would make you feel. He will make you want to spend some time at your own “front desk” and gauge responses. Here are some examples:
· “I’m your guide today, stay with me at all times.”
· “The arrows on the wall will tell you which direction to go.”
· “The site is yours to explore.”
At EID we perceive the act of preparing the visitor to engage on-site is fundamental to a successful interpretive experience and is often missing in many interpretive plans. Opportunities to impress and entice should be required and reinforced at the welcome/admission area.
Opportunity missed Photo credit : Bill Reynolds
We are also very glad that Steve proclaimed “…a favourite place of mine to extend interpretation is the café,” with menu design and fabric of the space. The author provides a brilliant image of using table surfaces to reflect the details in an historic site ceiling not easily viewed. He also mentions an exhibit in the middle of the restaurant at London’s Royal Opera House that displays a Swan Lake ballerina’s costume, suspended on wires, giving the illusion of gliding effortlessly through the air. All food service areas should be part of the interpretive plan and are integral to the reinforcement of messages. Subtle reminders of the site’s Mission, Image, Message and desired Outcomes should pervade all visitor service treatments as in the gift shop, play areas, rest areas, pathways, parking, and, of course, eating spots.
Interpretive devices
The book provides a large section describing the choices that presently exist from print to digital to interventions and the following highlights a smattering of these techniques. First, a sharing of two interpretive centre pet peeves (and potential solutions) EID shares with the author.
1) Ineffective, sloppy lighting placement that creates visitor shadows obliterating that which you are trying to read and
2) Unimaginative labels
credit Bill Reynolds
Any head shakes out there agreeing with us and confirming the frustrating ubiquity of this?
In the first case, Steve describes an elaborate way of remedying sloppy lighting in a gallery by employing a cinematographer to oversee the exhibit lighting scheme that had the bonus impact of mood creation in the different spaces. In an elemental sense, why would you not have someone check light placement when people of different heights are actually in position and correct errors before permanent installation?
In the second case, Steve mentions how he tries to correct the humdrum label issue simply by challenging graphic designers to break the white square card mold and create beautiful labels. Related to this are two different spins Steve shares on the concept of printed labels. In one case, individual character cards were printed and distributed to visitors before they moved through an historic exhibit, explaining what happened to actual people to create a sense of empathy in visitors (e.g. 600 ID card booklets exist for this purpose for visitors to use at the US Holocaust Museum). Along a different vein, Tate Britain’s gallery produced a range of collectible visitor maps directing visitors to enjoy interactions with non-curator-driven topics, such as eclectically themed paintings organized into Odd Faces, First Date, I’ve Just Split Up, and I like Yellow.
As the author says, writing is the subject of a whole book but he does provide some great overview thoughts. He makes an excellent point about knowing the role and the function of a piece of text from the perspective of a visitor’s experience. To quote Steve: “It is NOT what do you want to tell them or what do you want them to know. It is knowing what you want that chunk of text to DO.” That is the driver. This is exactly why EID uses an outcome matrix that reflects the Head, the Heart, the Hands and the Hunger of the holistic visitor. The thinking head stuff is just one potential result and very one-dimensional.
Slack reminds us to keep in mind that writing visitor-facing text means the visitor is most likely “…standing up, on a weekend, in their downtime, and surrounded by people, noisy chatter and beeping mobile phones.” Long conceptual oriented text won’t cut it. A gem, in my estimation, is his advice to “let teenagers read your text” before you commit to anything.
Improving for the Visitor Benefit
Really intriguing was the author’s example of shifting interpretation at the National Trust’s Rainham Hall that had been home to over 50 people in its lifetime. They have chosen to re-interpret the site every 2 years using different historical characters each time. Using “Who’s Living at Rainham Hall” as a bit of a marketing rallying call, this is a wondrous example of partnership and co-creation. Bravo! Lead collaborative designers at Studioweave said on their web site that their goal was to “balance a community focus with scholarly content, alongside joyful entertainment.” An impressive and bang-on triad of aims to accomplish within a mission driven objective.
Rainham Hall credit Studioweave
Steve points out that this is a perfect example that “…interpretation does not need to be left static.” EID would shout from the rooftops and say interpretation should NEVER BE LEFT STATIC. To avoid this perception by the visitor is paramount. Our profession needs to always aim at getting visitors to come back for another experience.
Directly related to this is the subject of interpretive project evaluation and as Steve declares - Why bother? He has 10 points WHY you should bother, along with providing audience response tools and notes on writing an evaluative brief. He shares items to ponder:
· How do you know if your outcomes were achieved?
· How can you grow in confidence and be emboldened to try new things?
· How can you continue to dialogue with your visitor for mutual benefit to understand likes/dislikes?
· How do you flag issues and correct them as you go?
Answering these questions would be following the mantra of continuous improvement, especially so you DON’T REMAIN STATIC. When it comes to evaluating exhibit planning and the search for constructive criticism the author recommends a process called the Excellent Judges Framework, outlined in Judging Exhibitions: A Framework for Assessing Excellence, developed by Beverley Serrell and colleagues.
Installing interpretive elements little- by -little while repeatedly re-evaluating was an approach the author used over the course of a year, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. This inspiring iterative experimental approach assessed:
· six different versions of a written label for the same painting,
· dedicating a whole room to just one painting,
· changing the wall backdrops away from traditional red,
· rehanging paintings to vary their distance apart.
credit Dulwich Gallery
This all provided the team with evidence to persuade reticent stakeholders worried about doing something different to implement changes. Feedback on interventions impacted the development of the next idea, thereby contributing to the front-end evaluation of the next project. Evaluation bottom line: visitor experiences get better.
Kudos to Steve for breaking the mold in the book’s bibliographic treatment by using a two-column approach to provide a brief summary of each book title. He prepared it using his interpretive framework of determining why write a bibliography, who is it for, what outcomes do I want, and how should I present it. Each title was presented like an object in an exhibition with a short label encouraging you to do something – in this case source out and read the book, describing reasons why you should do just that.
This two - part review is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the diversity and wealth of topics on interpretation and planning in this book. You will want to add it to your bookshelf (at least for those of us over 35 still using bookshelves)!
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