As we discussed in class, learning in museums is not the same as in schools. Instead of being directed and expert-led, museums offer visitors opportunities to freely move through space, empowering each person to choose his or her own individual path based on personal interests or curiosity.
With the visitor engagement in mind, summarize either John Falk's essay "The Museum Visitor Experience" or Nina Simon's "Principles of Participation," discussing how the author maps out strategies to best support visitor learning in the museum setting. How does your author view the audience, and what does he/she see as vital to improving each visitor's museum experience in the years to come? What do you think about the author's ideas? Discuss these elements in your summary, using at least four sentences, and post to the blog no later than 5 pm, Monday, November 2. Thanks and have a great weekend!
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ReplyDeleteIn the article "Principles of Participation" by Nina Simone, the author starts out with relating her writing to her own personal experience at a museum. She talks about the poorly planned set up of having visitors leave video comments on their experience in the museum. From there she leads into discussing the two different ways that museums try to engage with patrons, chiefly focusing on the participatory and the traditional. For example, a traditional museum sets out to have a exhibit so well done that anyone can appreciate the works, no matter their backgrounds. Participatory museums try to have their patrons almost serve as creators, critics, and collaborators (among other things) to the works. The outcome of experiences like this for a visitor is that there are diverse interactions and the museum cannot always guarantee consistent results in terms of patrons experiences. The author then goes on to talk about how to interact with patrons, starting with the explosion of social media over the last 15 or so years and she also talks in this section about how to engage within the museum walls with the visitor. The remainder of the chapter is broken into similar sections where she talks about how to get the best participation, how to identify participation and she does a really great job of explaining the participants. By that I mean, she breaks down the different types of participants, (creators, critics, collectors, people who interact on social media, etc.) and how some of them are interactive with one another.
ReplyDeleteShe concludes her article with talking about how incredibly successful Nike's Me-to-we system of interacting with runners through their iPod is, and the different stages that the system utilizes. There's five stages that she describes and she talks about how stage one provides visitors with content that they can seek, stage two provides visitors with a chance to ask questions and take actions, and how these two stages are really where most museums are.
In the remaining three stages they consist of visitors understanding how their interests fit into the grand scheme of things, visitors connecting with certain people or the staff of the museums, and making the institution a social place for everyone. Those three stages, Simone argues could benefit museums tremendously if they could be integrated successfully. She wants to see a more diverse experience within museums and thinks it could be very successful to the future of museums.
I really like her ideas of integration, and I think the model of Nike's experiences is a good one to follow. Personally I do not know how to implement the ideas, but I do think museums could stand to have more immersive experiences. One of the best exhibits I have ever visited was the Harry Potter movie exhibition. I saw it in Chicago and again two years later in NYC. Both times they started out the exhibit with allowing a few people to be sorted into their perspective Hogwarts houses by placing a sorting hat on their head. It was incredibly thrilling to someone like me who has grown up with these books and has dreamed of going to Hogwarts for fifteen years. It was a great way to interact with the audience, encourage participation, and create long lasting memories for the visitors. The second time I went to the exhibit it felt like a whole brand new experience, and it was tremendously exciting. Museums could learn a lot from movie exhibits and how they foster successful interactions with their audience members.
In John Falk's essay "The Museum Visitor Experience" he focuses largely on what each visitor wants to get out of each museum visit, and how this can be better achieved by museums. Falk explains that audiences cannot be viewed through concrete lenses- for example aspects of visitors such as race or gender are not useful predictors in determining why someone is or isn't visiting a museum - or how useful their visit is to them overall.
ReplyDeleteInstead, he suggests that we look deeper into their minds as viewers. He leads the reader to think that the way a person learns and thinks is incredibly important when thinking about an audience member, and why they choose to visit a museum, or return to that museum. He sees it as vital for museums to understand the five types of visitors to museums, and how they think- as well as ways that they achieve personal goals related to their identity. Falk lists the five types of visitors as: explorers, facilitators, professionals/hobbyists, experience seekers, and rechargers. He says that is museums can begin to personalize experiences to fit each kind of viewer, then they will be largely more successful in increasing attendance, and the quality of visits.
Overall, he is suggesting that the museums need to map out several different ways in which to teach viewers, and if they use a model that is flexible and has a sense of multiplicity, as a strategy, they will be exponentially more creative and attractive.
I think that this is an interesting view on interpreting how visitors think, and why they chose to visit these museums and exhibits. I personally see myself as fitting into the 'recharger' category, looking for a spiritual connection and finding peace within the space. In the blog post last week, I wrote about how I didn't find enough quiet, and peace within the specific exhibit I was discussing, and how I didn't enjoy the show because of this reason. However now that I have read this essay, I think that if the National Gallery had focused more on being able to personalize that particular exhibit to different learners and viewers, I most likely would have enjoyed it much more. I agree with what Falk thinks, in terms of museums needing to ditch research focused on concrete variables, and focus more on types of learning and ways of following interests.
In John Falk’s essay “The Museum Visitor Experience” he argues that it is a necessity to know who is visiting a museum and that no research has provided a model of the museum visitor experience accurately, up until his. He believes that there are two major problems with researching visitors motives: research occurs only within the four walls of a museum so professionals don’t know what motivates a visitor to go; second he believes that studies only focus on permanent questions like demographics and content of a museum, which does not answer the question of why a visitor decided to come. A visitor is influenced by the content of a museum but what they learn is not independently based on if the exhibit was of higher quality but rather what they spent the time looking at. Falk’s research led him to interview people months after a visit and he got a sense of how closely visits are in relation to personal identity. He believes that visitors will pick a museum based on the role they are trying to fulfill and the example he gives is if someone views themselves as a good father they will go to a museum that leads them to satisfy that role. Falk views the audience in five groups of identity-related visitors: explorers, facilitators, professionals, experience seekers, and rechargers. His research shows that trends have developed from these categories and show how the visitors experience would result based on characteristics of each identity group. He believes it is vital for museum professionals to use these categories to custom the experience for a certain visitor, and the outcome will result in museums appealing to more people all the time.
ReplyDeleteI really like Falk’s views on the visitor, as it strips away the gender and race of a person and focuses on their ideology and personal motivations. I find it interesting that he says depending on the visit a person can fall into any of the categories, making one’s identity more flexible. Falk’s point of view does not stick the visitor into one category, like student, child, or minority, and instead allows for a more personal experience in a museum stemming from the idea that the visitor is searching to fulfill something in their day-to-day life.
The reading I chose to look at was the "The Museum Visitor Experience: Who Visits, Why and to What Effect?" by John Falk. The main thesis of his chapter is how museums are going to be able to find available resources in our current economy, but also look at they, as a museum, can better serve their visitors. Falk goes through a majority of problems museum have when confronted with this problem. One problem that was brought up in the disscussion that was brought up was how to enhance a visitors experience. The map which he provides for the visitor experience and the role of identity was very well thought out and calculated. Looking at this graph, it reminds me of of my Aesthics in Seminar class where we talked about how art can have a profound influecne on the viewer and if in fact this happens the artwork is indeed is considered art. With this notion in my head, it made me better understand Flaks diagram. After re-reading the diagram, I think he has it right on how identity-related aspects leads to people visiting the muesum. I think as visitors we are motivated to visit an exhibit if it touches us on a one on one bases.
ReplyDeleteNina Simon provided some interesting points on how to improve museum participation in her essay “Principles of Participation.” She pointed out in the beginning that accessibility was a major factor in whether or not an audience member would participate. Simon categorized the audience members as different types of participators- creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives (or audience members who did not necessarily want to participate). She noted that it is important to provide a variety of means of participation that would appeal to every possible type of participator. Further, Simon noted that these means of audience participation should benefit the main stakeholders in a museum- the institution, the participants, and the audience- in order to be successful, and so it does not become something extra or burdensome that the institution has to deal with. Another interesting and accurate point that Simon made was that utilizing constraints and controlling social engagement through personal entry points made visitors more confident in their participation. I think that Simon made some insightful points, and I appreciated the case studies that she included after introducing her ideas in the essay. This demonstrated that these tactics could be successful implemented in a museum setting.
ReplyDeleteIn The Museum Visitor Experience: Who Visits, Why, and to What Effect?, John Falk addresses some historical problems with viewing effectiveness of museums, and his own, identity-related insight into why people do visit the institutions. Researchers in the past, he attests, have run into problems in that they are looking in too limited a scope, both in place and time, when attempting to discover why people go to museums. One must look beyond the moment the visitor is in the door and indeed who the visitor is. Much of the reason people visit, he suggests, is wrapped up in people’s limited sense of identity. One will go to a museum to attempt to self-actuate a preconceived personal identity, and the success of the museum consequently hinges upon the institution’s ability to deliver this realization. The author breaks museum visitors up into five main groups according to this system: “Explorers,” “Facilitators,” “Professional/Hobbyists,” “Experience Seekers,” and “Rechargers.” If we can understand that these are key motivators for museum-goers, he asserts, we can begin to better tailor the museum to the visitor and in the end bring more people in the door.
ReplyDeleteFalk views the audience is terms of a complex system of individuals, each with their own identities and reasons for attending museums. He is then attempting to sort of scientifically quantify these identities in a way that can help museums make sense of visitors and the visitor experience. I suppose it would make sense to know more of his exact research, but at first blush it seems like a pretty ingenious way to market study for the business of museums. This sort of things does kind of scare me, though, in that I don’t really want the majesty of a museum to lose itself in the grip of the market economy.
In the article, "Principles of Participation", the author Nina Simon discusses how valuable participation is and how to increase it in museums. Simon sees the audience with two different types of institutions, traditional and participatory. These institutions vary greatly because traditional promotes participation from one source. But, Simon encourages museums to create a participatory institution. A participatory institution encourages to allow for multiple sources of participation to appeal to many different visitors. This institution promotes multiple multidirectional experiences and supports the visitors' abilities as creators or remixers. Besides connecting in the museum, Simon believes museums should also be connecting with audiences outside of the building. This can occur through the internet such as social media. This will interest those unsure of visiting and reconnect with those who have visited in the past. Museum staff should care for participation because many outcomes from participation line up with the diverse goals of an institution. Simon says by encouraging participation, visitors will gain personal fulfillment while museums will accomplish some of their goals. In the next twenty years, Simon predicts that the majority of museums will integrate many forms of participatory experiences for current and future visitors.
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of Simon's views on participation in museums. Everyone is does not think the same, so museums should not use the traditional institution format. By using the participatory format, experiences will be created, shared, and connect with the majority of the audience which will bring in more visitors to repeat the same process.
The article, “Principles of Participation,” written by Nina Simone, focuses on participation done in the museum. Simone’s goal for this article is to increase participation in a museum. Simone says that there are too types of museums, the traditional and the participatory. The traditional believes that their exhibition is set up so effectively that it should connect with all audiences. The participatory says that there are different types of participants, which includes: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and the inactive. The goal of the participatory museums is to have different things that will appeal to every group, which will encourage everyone to participate. Simone believes that being a participatory museum should be part of the museums mission, an over all goal. It should not be something that they do extra, but it should benefit the museum as a whole. The participatory museum also believes that they should try to connect with the audience more than just inside the museum, for example: using social media. Simone’s goal and prediction is that people start to implement this into museums over the next couple of years.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I really enjoyed this reading. I am an education major and as a future educator that is something we talk about all the time. Students are not all the same, they all learn and connect in different ways, so it is important to include different learning styles so that you can connect with all the students. We talked about this last class, that certain museums include no labels and not information and they believe that you either get or you don’t, and that isn’t the way to approach things, everyone is different. And if the goal is to educate, then the audience walking in the door should be enough for us to try our hardest to educate them about the work, to help them participate within the museum.
John Falk’s essay, “The Museum Visitor Experience” really focuses on the idea of identity and how identity is what drives museum visitors motivation to be at said museum as well as how they experience they’re time in the space. Falk after a lot of research found that museum visitors couldn’t all be put under one big umbrella of a category. Falk specifically looked at memory as a resource and what visitors remembered about their experience. He explains that they all have an “I” identity that drives them to go into museums and experience the space, which is usually harbored by personal connections, predetermined reasons for visitation or they go to gain benefits from museum.
ReplyDeleteFalk breaks down how there are five different categories of visitors, the explorer, facilitator, professional/hobbyist, experience seeker and rechargers. Each group has specific characteristics that made them actually go to the museum, example: facilitator could be categorized as parents who brought their kids for them to experience it. Whereas as recharger visitor is someone who is going to seek solitude and a more spiritual experience with the artifacts/art work. Falk concluded his essay by saying museums should maybe focus less on a more general approach of getting visitors and focus more on catering to those five categories; because in the end if those interests/needs of the viewer are met then the museum can a more frequent visitors.
I found Falk’s ideas to be fascinating and I can relate what he is saying to my personal experience. People going to museums do have expectations before they even enter and if they were able to meet those especially on a personal level they would have not so frequent visitors more consistent. I agree that the visitor model that museums usually use of a more general approach is not as effective and visitors are there to gain knowledge and experience that will benefit their life. With that said it has to be approached in a way that can be categorized and adapted to different types of viewers.
In John Falk's essay "The Museum Visitor Experience", he discusses briefly the five different types of people who tend to visit museums. He breaks it down into five different groups and how they best receive information from a museum: there are "explorers" who are curiosity-driven people with general interest in most things, "facilitators" who are socially motivated to go to museums, "professional / hobbyists" who have a professional or personal interest in the topic of the museum, "experience seekers" who view the museum as an important place to see. and "rechargers" who seek spiritual enlightenment in museums. John also describes that it is important to note the difference between visitors "identity" and "Identity", showing the difference between traits that are fluid versus unchangeable. These traits draw certain populations of people, but, as pointed out and discussed by the author, is not the best way to measure the "museum experience". Rather, they should be contacted some time after visiting the museum and after the visitor has had time to reflect on the information gained. People are also driven to a specific type of museum for a specific reason and the quality of the museum is judged on its ability to provide what visitors are looking for. I agree with these views of improvement, as it is awkward and uncomfortable being asked how the museum is while standing in the museum itself, and it is also true that people go to certain museums for specific reasons. For example, I would not go to a science museum intending to experience intricate abstract art.
ReplyDeleteIn John Falk's article, he belabors the necessity of the museum to concern itself with the needs and wants of the visitor, as criterion for further legitimizing the museum as a public institution in today's increasingly cutthroat economic climate. However, he criticizes previous research for having lacked ambition when it comes to evaluating the visitor experience. He directly links a museum visitor's experience to their identity, and how said identity informs their intent when visiting the museum. Once museums begin the process of identifying their visitors and their motives, he believes that they will better be able to tailor the exhibition experience to them. He groups visitors by their motive, establishing different ways of thinking for each. Personally, I must caution against such a straightforward way of thinking, while smart and well-argued, the article is limited in nuance when it comes to describing why people attend museums, and comes dangerously close to quantifying visitors as "types of consumers," soon to be the target of "focus groups," causing museums to hire people with "marketing experience." Such things, whilst helpful in other endeavors, can obscure the purpose of museums, which is primarily to educate as opposed to entertaining.
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