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

>I am wondering whether anecdotal evidence or systematic research is 
>available to assess the importance of these "human delivered 
>experiences" (demos, cart programs, science lunch counters, 
>facilitated labs, theater programs) vis a vis their counterparts of 
>unfacilitated experiences such as exhibitions, media kiosks, etc.

Slightly tangential to what you're asking, but an experience that 
certainly highlighted the value of people in exhibits for me:

I was involved some years ago in a large scale interactive experience 
- it was a theater with 120 degrees of screen and interactive 
touchscreens for pairs of people. The premise was that the film 
experience told a story and that people could affect the outcome of 
the story by using their touchscreens. It was a gated experience, 
able to accommodate about 120 people at a time and lasted about 20 
minutes.

The final produced piece was relatively heavy on narration - we had 
imagined that it could be used on a (ahem, let me date myself) cd-rom 
that we could produce in-house. In early user-testing, visitors felt 
pretty comfortable with the whole experience and felt that it was 
complete. Honestly, it worked reasonably well and we had an 
understanding of some the weak points in the interactivity.

As part of the launch, we brought in local actors to bring the 
narrative to life, and they ended up being incredibly compelling. 
Visitors responded so positively that we ended up figuring out how to 
bring the actors on-board for the duration of the show, about a year. 
We also found that we could pull back on the amount of narrative 
embedded in the film because the actors were so much more compelling. 
The actors would frequently respond directly to the audience and 
would customize their response based on the moment, which the 
narrative could never do in the same way.

People simply responded to people, and it added a nice level of 
variability to the whole experience. I've seen that be true over and 
over in additional experiences developed over the years.

-bw.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Bruce Wyman, Director of New Technologies
Denver Art Museum  /  100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204
office: 720.913.0159  /  fax: 720.913.0002
<[log in to unmask]>

***********************************************************************
More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
Association of Science-Technology Centers may be found at http://www.astc.org.
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]