Prince Edward Island, Canada is famous for their potato crop and a visit to the namesake museum was a stop on a recent trip itinerary. Out front of the Canadian Potato Museum was a very prominent, clear, colourful sign that was easy to read at a distance, had clear lettering on contrasting background, and it was sparkling clean - that is not always the case for visitor centres and I could fill a book with bad examples much more easily.
However, even though all these points are very important, what I really want to stress today is the last line on the sign. They are letting you know about the “Country Kitchen” availability with the universal symbol of knife and fork being recognizable as an eating establishment.
This is a welcoming and orientation design decision that informs & impacts the visitor journey experience along with potential attendance, which therefore impacts interpretive contacts. Travellers need to know and locals need to be reminded that you have food and beverages on site.
courtesy Bill Reynolds
Never Underestimate the Power of Food
In EID, we talk about the holistic 4H visitor and how appealing to their Head, Heart, Hands, and Hunger is so critical to interpretive success. Eating areas onsite should be designed to reinforce your site mission and messages period! Or you are cheating your visitor…and your site!
Food can be about revenue generating possibilities, getting the visitor in the door to improve awareness, and beginning the forging of a relationship between your site and the visitor. Awareness of food and interpretive partnerships with food vendors are undersold as collaborative opportunities. The visitor may not have originally intended to make this stop but now…here they are. Maybe they didn’t have time to visit the museum on this occasion but perhaps in the future they will, and you now have a chance to influence that return decision.
In addition, if visitors know they can grab a bite at the museum that might mean they don’t have to find another place to eat with the result being they might potentially never come back. Visitors can accomplish both food and leisure attraction visit needs with your one-stop shop, so they might as well drop-in.
With a crop-food product as the main focus of this site, it would be a simple task to reinforce mission connections through the direct act of eating the topic being interpreted. In the majority of cases, more effort is needed.
Too many sites we visit are missing the opportunities to have an interpretive presence integrated within their food and beverage operation that could contain subtle cues reinforcing your site goals and make your site experience more engaging for the visitor. You need to advocate for this interpretive addition and we would love to have a conversation with you about how to do this at your site regardless of your topic focus. Our email is: contact@eidcoaching.com
Focal Point: Don’t Overdo It
From a display perspective, the Canadian Potato Museum, took an interesting approach to interpreting disease and death among the plant world. They decided to employ silk-lined miniature (8 inch/20 cm) coffins to house various pest-afflicted potatoes. They mounted them on the wall with an associated vertical text description and a photograph of the pest in question. The first one was effective to catch your attention but a wall array of them all displayed in the same manner lost its initial effect.
Tuber R.I.P Courtesy Bill Reynolds
A plant agronomist would have been glued to the display but a potato in numerous discoloured and mis-formed shapes (even in beautifully designed little coffins) as a visual display did not hold the average visitor. Using one as an arresting focal point then highlighting the diversity of parasites and associated conditions around their lives, for example, could have been more effective. Inter- relationships between the animal and plant world can be relevant to many visitors and open up a world of intrigue for the person who is not involved in crop management and viewing their livelihood through a pest/host perspective. As always, determining the outcome for different kinds of visitors remains paramount for design decisions and displays.
Side Note: You could have interpretive fun with the gravestone moniker R.I.P with titles like: Rejoice in Parasitology; Rest in Potato Peace etc. Send your examples to contact@eidcoaching.com and the best one will receive a 1- hour coaching consult- free of charge from EID.
Participatory Analogy
Discovering a yoga potato poster down a hallway was an unexpected find. A diamond-in-the-rough or a tuber-in-a-trough, so to speak, was languishing behind-the-scenes but it carried with it so much participatory potential. Such a novel way to actively engage the visitor and make the grow-harvest cycle relevant by doing yoga moves that mimic what potato growers do. How the site had used or were using the poster was unclear; however, if integrated into the site visit, it would have added a fun component.
Spud Yoga Courtesy Bill Reynolds
It could be used individually or to lead your family as a self-guided approach throughout the site. I really believe it would best be done as a fun pre-registered event for a group, because not every visitor would be attired properly and doing the complete exercise routine would take some time. It has potential to be broken up into seasonal chunks with certain stations being done in different regions of the museum. Stretch and bend like growing sprouts exercise as one example could be handled relatively easily with photos to guide the visitor through the task.
Maybe even a video of a staff member performing the poses on the museum website as a “follow along” for folks at home before they even visit. Then when they arrive at the site they can repeat the pose at the same on- site location.
Do you see other ways to apply this use of a sport exercise analogy to a natural history process? Would some process at your site lend itself to a comparison like this, using yoga or some other athletic maneuver – judo, football, sailing – to engage the visitor? Have fun with this one and let your imagination go. Send us what you come up with in the comment section of the blog post and we will share it with others.
Namaste