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We all have stories of visitors who believed an exhibit was broken because
they could not get it to work.  At some point I realized that if a visitor
could not get the exhibit to work then it was "broken" even if it was
functional.  I guess poor design is broken.  Prototyping will let you get
to some of this.  I have on occasion inherited  exhibits that took a
redesign before most people figured out how to do it.  One in particular
was outside the door to my office and I after keeping track for a month as
I passed by it was obviously a functional exhibit that few people could
"work".  The interface or the exhibit needs to be intuitive enough that
most people can use it without reading the instructions.  A portion of our
audience is under 6 and can not read, a portion of our audience will read
as a last resort.  That's one of the value of explainers or floor staff
who can bridge the gap between intuition and an exhibit.  So if you have a
combination of some exhibits that are actually broken and some the visitor
can not work you quickly reach "everything is broken".  That threshold
could be is as low as 5% of 100 exhibit modules.  If someone finds the
same exhibit "broken" two visits in a row it gets lower.   In other words
the actual percentage does not matter.  Even if they all work It is the
visitor's perception that you have to deal with.  It can be handled by
design, redesign, and facilitation.  Finally customer attitude goes away
if your floor people or explainers can actually fix a broken exhibit so
that the visitor can then use it.  Of course, I am assuming you do the
normal good job and a high percentage of your exhibits are functional and
receive daily checks and attention.

Dr. Mac Sudduth
Coordinator of Science Grants
Premier DeKalb County Schools
Department of Research and Evaluation
3770 N. Decatur Road
Decatur, Georgia 30032-1099
678-676-0675
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