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Leah, we did an outdoor exhibit for the San Francisco Zoo a couple of years ago that included an independent summative evaluation.  The exhibit included a set of banners with first-person quotes from various people about conservation of lemurs in Madagascar.  The evaluators observed visitors surreptitiously and then did exit interviews with them.  One interesting finding was that visitors whom the valuators thought had paid no attention to the labels where nevertheless able to describe in detail the content, even quoting verbatim in some cases.   So it raises the question of whether you can really tell just by watching whether a particular visitor has read a label, much less whether they spent 30 seconds or 60, unless you ask them.  

Chuck


> 2. When calculating the raw data of the amount of time people spend,
> say, reading a label, do you measure the mean average, median, or mode?
> For example, one analysis I found for an exhibit was: 53.3% read the
> wall label and spent an average of 31 seconds doing so. I got to 31
> seconds because most people spent between :11 and :29 seconds, but one
> person spend 1:30 which raised the mean average. Thoughts?
> 
> Thank you!
> Leah
> 
> Leah Fox, Director of Public Programs
> Currier Museum of Art
> 150 Ash Street
> Manchester, NH 03104
> 603.669.6144 x119
> 

Chuck Howarth, Vice President
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