Visitor Experience Studies

If you’re seeing a visitor experience problem or challenge you might be thinking like this:

We have a problem to solve about visitors and their experiences — maybe something about visitor behavior or unexpected disappointments.
We’re concerned with wayfinding issues in an existing building, for a new building, or for an outdoor site.
We have a unique issue about our visitors’ experience – we need help defining the issue and finding a direction toward resolving it.
We need strategies for evaluating a variety of short-term programs.

The most common types of visitor experience studies are visitor orientation /wayfinding studies, analysis of visitor behavior, the effectiveness of publicity, and use of visitor services. Some of our visitor experience projects include:

The Newark Conservancy, Newark, NJ: analysis of Urban Habitats, a school group program about plant and animal life in the city, for early elementary students
Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, AZ: three-phase experiment involving visitor orientation to a new entry experience (collaborating with Judy Rand, Rand & Associates)
University of Wisconsin-Madison, CMIS-SSEC: visitor experience studies of an innovative project to provide timely updated data sets about global conditions to all Science On a Sphere (SOS) installations at science centers and museums