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What a great way to start out the new year!! I'd like to thank Charlie  
for asking such a potentially inflammatory question in so thoughtful  
and respectful a manner. You can't have a difficult conversation if  
you start off being rude or snarky, and I'm glad Charlie was able to  
resist the temptation to slip in a zinger or two.

I am also eager to see what my evaluation colleagues have to say. In  
my own 20+ years in exhibits, I don't think I've ever worked on an  
exhibit or exhibition that couldn't have benefited from both  
evaluation and a willingness to make changes based on patterns of user  
behavior, not just anecdote. Personally, the best exhibition I've ever  
worked on went through rigorous (and I do mean rigorous) formative  
evaluation. The key difference with that project was that it had a  
budget for both remedial evaluation and for making changes after  
opening based on the remedial.  Particularly on the scale of an  
exhibition, remedial evaluation is critical. Individual components can  
be tested til the cows come home and never tell you how they'll  
interact with each other in a room full of people.  It never fails to  
humble me to see how unpredictable visitors in a gallery can be.

In a way, the reactions to this comment remind me a lot of the way  
accessibility gets discussed. When you frame the discussion as "the  
government makes us do all this stuff and it costs money I could spend  
on other stuff." then it's hard to see beyond that to essential  
issues.  If evaluation is just something you put in to satisfy NSF,  
then you're probably not oing to learn anything useful from it. The  
same goes for ADA. If your goal is just to "be in compliance", then  
ADA will always be a millstone.

Does evaluation cost? Yes. I know I've choked when reading the odd  
evaluation budget or two in the past. Does it provide benefit? In my  
experience, yes. Does the latter justify the former? Now that's an  
interesting question. I suppose that depends on how you do it and why  
you do it.

Ed

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