ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

Thanks to Joe for his thoughtful answer to the question of how much to
budget for prototyping.  On the nitty-gritty side of the question, I can add
that the percentage of the budget and the amount of time various enormously,
depending on the details of the exhibition.  For example, more interactives,
more complex subjects, and controversial topics require more prototyping
than less interactives, simpler topics, and lack of controversy.  But other
factors are vital too:  if you have given a lot of study to the elements and
examined similar units elsewhere before building your first prototype, you
will probably need fewer iterations.

Having said all that, I will still venture a number:  20% of the total
budget for prototyping is a good average, although I have seen projects vary
from 10% to 80% of their budget spent on prototyping.  Prototyping also adds
3 months to a year to the length of a project, included in the cost range
estimate above.  I can think of one modest sized project a long time ago
which spent 100% of its budget and 100% of its time on prototyping--the
@#$@! thing never did work, and we eventually abandoned it altogether.
Fortunately the funder had many good experiences with us before and after,
but I still wince at the memory.

Even in that instance, however, the prototyping expense was a bargain, and
the right thing to do.  First, we learned a lot about why that exhibit idea
didn't work, and have not made those same mistakes again.  Even more
importantly, it kept us from putting an ineffective, confusing, misleading,
frustrating, and/or always-breaking-down exhibition on the floor, which
would have been far worse than having no exhibition at all.  We can all
think of a few exhibits we have seen which have one or more of those
attributes, and I'll bet those exhibits had no or inadequate time and money
for prototyping.

If our bottom line is our impact on the visitors, prototyping is nearly
always an excellent investment.  If we spend 20% of the budget on
prototyping, but the exhibition which results is 50% better at communicating
with the audience, then we are way ahead.

Suggested references on prototyping:

Try It!  Improving Exhibits through Formative Evaluation, ed. Sam Taylor and
Beverly Serrell (Washington, D.C.: Association of Science Technology
Centers; New York:  New York Hall of Science, 1991).

"Convincing the Director," by Alan J. Friedman, in Museum Visitor Studies in
the 90s, ed. Sandra Bicknell and Graham Farmelo (London:  Science Museum,
1993) pp. 43-46.

Alan

****************************************************
Alan J. Friedman, Ph.D.
Consultant
Museum Development and Science Communication
29 West 10th Street
New York, New York 10011 USA
T  +1 917 882-6671
F  +1 212 673-2279
E  [log in to unmask]

***********************************************************************
For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.

Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.

The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html.

To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the
message  SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to
[log in to unmask]