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Sarah,

At The Tech in the late nineties Susan Wageman also made the observation
that broken exhibits were attempted  by more visitors more than working
ones, because they were more available.  This becomes much more of a
problem when the museum is crowded - which is the normal mode for most
visitors. I do not recall, however, that any numerical conclusions were
reached -  i.e. the visitor-estimated percentages of broken exhibits, vs.
the real percentage.

The other comments are good - about exhibits that have poor interfaces or
text.  Note also that visitors sometimes find problems of which the staff
are unaware - I recall working through rather long computer interactives
that had programming glitches that were evident only after some minutes of
working through a "tree."  The staff (until then) were unaware of the
problems.

Good luck!

Peter Anderson

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