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Thank you Ian, for your kind words about Techniquest. The tale of the
Techniquest name wasn't quite like that though.

Back in 1985 when we were known by the working title of WISTC (The Welsh
Interactive Science and Technology Centre) - very catchy, we were offered
the use of the Marketing Department of Wales Gas to assess a whole series of
names. 

Their manager Nichola Lewis devised a "hall-test" to evaluate the appeal of
a science centre and to look at a list of about 10 names.

Remember that at this time there were no permanent science centres in the
UK, the names that scored best were the literal names "Science Fun",
"Encounter Science" etc. Techniquest actually scored quite badly as far as I
recall.

So when we met together to consider the findings, none of us liked the very
literal names and we were considering another test run when one of the
researchers said that, actually they'd been calling it Techniquest
throughout the survey. We all agreed that that was what we called it too, so
that's how we ended up with the name.  Not a great evaluation story I'm
afraid.

As a fully bi-lingual centre, it has the advantage of having no Welsh
translation.

Having lived with it for 20 years I have no objectivity left at all, but I
still like it.


-- 
Harry White, Concept Development Director
Techniquest, Stuart Street, Cardiff, UK. CF10 5BW
Tel: +44 (0) 29 20 475 475, Direct: +44 (0) 29 20 475 464
Fax: +44 (0) 29 20 482 517
Web: http://www.techniquest.org

Techniquest is a Company Limited by Guarantee,
registered in England and Wales, no. 1955696
It is a registered as a charity, no. 517722

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