Interpretive Planning

Very often, a planner is called upon to take an existing plan or background material to the next stage. Maybe the client, or group of coworkers, has developed a preliminary approach and the planner (whether hired or part of the staff) must review that approach and move forward. So what happens if the approach is off-base, either a little or a lot?

I like the idea of “tweaking” rather than throwing someone’s work effort out wholesale. This activity can require some delicate footwork, depending on whose work is being tweaked. Let’s face it, you don’t want to be the one to tell your boss straight out that he or she doesn’t know anything. And the good news is, you rarely have to. Usually, it’s a matter of making a few minor adjustments before forging on. Let’s take an example:

You’re handed a document entitled “exhibit content” and have been asked to populate an exhibit gallery with interactive exhibits. The document consists of six pages (single-spaced, double-sided) with sentences and sentence fragments related to things that might be included in your new exhibit hall. Some are stories, some are design ideas, some might even be called things you want to accomplish or objectives. It looks like someone took the results of a brainstorming session and simply recorded notes without any filtering, but you’re new here, don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, and you really can’t make any sense out of the document because it gives no real direction about what to do next.

Rather than starting from scratch entirely, take the time to review the document in detail and perhaps color-code the individual items (red dot in the margin for stories; blue for actual design ideas; green for objectives; etc.). Now reorganize the document according to your color coding system. Where are the holes? Starting with what you have, begin plugging those holes.

Is it clear what you’re trying to accomplish in support of the mission? Take the suggested objectives and tweak them into a logic model that makes sense with measurable factors for impacts and outcomes that also help define your audience. Once everyone agrees on what you’re trying to accomplish, see if you can tweak the miscellaneous facts and stories into a theme-subtheme-storyline construct to land on a strong, central message that everyone can support.

Test the design ideas to ensure that the suggested concepts communicate the desired message to the targeted audience so that the objectives can be accomplished. Are there objectives, audience segments, or messages that haven’t been addressed by the ideas in hand? If so, let your creativity take over to fill in those gaps. Round out the effort by preparing a budget and an action plan for next steps.

The people who participated in developing the preliminary document will feel that their efforts have been honored, but you will feel better having a more usable plan that is well-organized and gives clear direction for what needs to happen next. Along the way, trim away the ideas that don’t seem to fit, but retain and build on the ones that do. Salvage what you can and praise the efforts of those who provided the starting point. Sometimes the nuggets you will uncover will be pure gold and sometimes they will require a little polishing to make them worthwhile but learning to tweak rather than toss can save time and effort, build stronger working relationships, and capture the valuable ideas that may otherwise fall by the wayside.

The second principle of interpretive planning is simple – just pay attention. To everything. It sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Yet I see simple mistakes made by planners and designers every place I go. Things that would have been easy to get right if they had been paying attention to details during the process. I recently saw (in a highly touted museum in our nation’s capital) an interpretive exhibit (flat wall panel) mounted squarely behind an interior door that apparently stays open 90% of the time, so that the door covers about 2/3 of the sign. Placement matters and it’s a big part of planning. Had the staff pencil-tested that floor plan, they could have foreseen the need for the door to be open and put that panel in another location. That same museum, and many others, also put interpretive panels leading down a staircase. I don’t know about you, but when I go down a staircase, I have to pay attention to the stairs, not the handwriting on the wall. In my view, putting anything that requires focused attention on a staircase wall is not only an accident waiting to happen, it’s simply a waste of money.

Let’s say you were planning a great dinner party at your house. You’d probably clean up some of those things that might put people off if they didn’t already know you well – the pile of trash by the driveway, the cat box odor, that pesky hall tree that actually blocks the door as you try to get in. Planning an interpretive site is no different.

As you begin to plan an interpretive experience, think about how it will be experienced. Is there ambient sound that might impact the quality of someone’s visit (a factory, airport, or busy highway right next door)? Are you accidentally planning to create noise pollution by recommending a plethora of unshielded audio devices in an exhibit gallery or music on the grounds that may not be appropriate?

Think about invasive odors – in some cases, the odor may be part of the story if you’re interpreting a sewage treatment plant or a big cat exhibit at the zoo, and if so, use it to your advantage. But if the odor is coming from something distasteful, get it cleaned up or think about how you work around it so that it doesn’t put off your guests.

The same approach can be taken with visual distractions. Using a screen of vegetation or a wall of some sort can help keep your visitors focused on what you want them focused on instead of the neighboring junkyard or your air conditioning system. If you choose to screen something, use a screen that matches your site’s theme. The Roger Williams Park Zoo turned a plain wooden wall into a painted mural of bright African textile design to match their theme of how the land, people, and animals are interwoven to create the rich fabric of Africa. In so doing, they reinforce the theme of the exhibit area, tie into some sales items, and brighten up the walkway in a positive way.

As you conduct your first site investigations during the planning process, look at wear patterns on existing pathways and exhibits. You can tell a lot about what interests visitors by where they go and what they touch most often. This can give you good background information for the choices you’ll be making. Notice whether there are lines forming at the restrooms. You may think restrooms have little or nothing to do with the interpretation at the site, but they really do. Interpretive planning isn’t just about the conveying the message, it’s about blending that message seamlessly into an entire experience so that the facilities, landscape, and interpretive media are indistinguishable from each other.

So pay attention as you plan. Look, listen, smell, touch . . . use all your senses to help you create the best experience possible for visitors so that your message comes across loud and clear. Remember that if you’re not delivering your message, you probably aren’t working helping to accomplish your mission.

About ten years ago, I visited an “Ocean Center.” It was a modest place with a modest admission price. It consisted of an entry station, a small shop, an outdoor plaza, and one exhibit building devoted to the interpretation of marine mammals. The exhibits were engaging and well-designed and I remembered my experience long after the visit.

I recently had the opportunity to visit the same center. Over the last decade, the facility has expanded. It now includes a large aquarium with tanks large enough to have divers feed the enclosed fish and talk to viewing crowds via an underwater microphone. The plaza area has incorporated several outdoor viewing tanks and the store is about three times as large as it once was. A full restaurant with an ocean view has been added, along with a smaller outdoor cafe and snack stand. The price has expanded also – a one-day ticket is now $25, substantially more than it was ten years ago, even accounting for inflation. New “interactive” exhibits (pushbuttons, flappers and crankers) have been added to the original exhibit building.

Have all these improvements improved the experience? Unfortunately, I would have to answer no. The new exhibits are far less engaging and although I always enjoy a good aquarium, the design of this one is challenging – the signs are too wordy and the lighting is so dim that nothing except the tanks can be seen clearly so the interpretive media accompanying the tanks is useless. There’s definitely more to see now, but the overall experience is no longer something I would recommend to others.

I’ve watched this phenomenon of growth with a simultaneous decline of experience at a number of places over the years, and while there may be valid reasons for expansion at some facilities, I often find that the expansion is done for expansion’s sake rather than to accomplish specific objectives.

One nature center I know was once known as one of the top five nature centers in the country based on the quality of its programming. Admittedly, its buildings, housed in and around an old bathhouse, were in sorry shape. But the programs were world-class and the nature center was an active, thriving, valued part of the local community. After new buildings were built, the focus shifted from building great programs to maintenance of the new structures. Interpreters began staying in their office spaces instead of being outside, talking informally with visitors. And the nature center no longer has the community or agency support it once enjoyed.

I’m not suggesting that every facility should avoid growth. But as you plan for expansion, be sure to consider the facility’s current strengths, and think about the potential that growth has for negatively impacting those strengths. It’s not always possible to predict the future, but think seriously about the implications of proposed changes during the planning process and recognize that bigger isn’t always better . . . not if it causes you to lose those things that made your facility or organization successful enough to warrant growth in the first place.

I’m not a big fan of video games. I’ll admit that right up front. But I was at my brother’s house last week and had the opportunity to try out his new Wii system. For those of you who (like me) keep your head in the sand when it comes to most things technological, Wii is a virtual game system that allows you to interact directly with your television set in the comfort of your own living room, yet gets you off the couch to bowl, play ping-pong, shoot archery targets, sword fight, and participate in any number of other active pursuits.

It’s a fascinating system, but it got me thinking about how to apply this sort of thing in planning exhibits and programs. My sister-in-law described a team-building event she put together for her work colleagues, getting them to wear their Wii bowling league’s colors and play for their team, all at the office instead of going to the bowling alley. Apparently, the coworkers didn’t want to go all the way to the lanes and wear someone else’s shoes, but they were thrilled with the idea of the Wii league.

Hmmm. For a generation that’s grown up with video games, are we fighting a losing battle by failing to acknowledge technology’s place in interpretive centers and programs? I’ve seen this go both ways: there are those who avoid technology under any circumstances because they want people outside with the real thing (and yet they may spend millions on an air-conditioned visitor center that encourages people to stay indoors rather than fight the bugs on the trails); and there are those who load their programs and centers with the latest in electronic gadgetry for the sake of having the latest in electronic gadgetry, whether they can reasonably maintain it or not.

I think I’m landing on the fence here and what would topple me to one side or the other (or a reasonable compromise) would be to know more about the specific audience I’m trying to reach with any of the electronic media available today. GPS units, podcasts, video touchscreens, virtual reality opportunities, and all sorts of other things might work IF the audience is receptive to those things. If not, they may be a huge waste of money.

I was interested to watch the audience at a major traveling exhibition that had a very expensive and well-scripted audio tour that required headsets. Within minutes, over 75% of the audience wearing a headset had the sets resting around their necks, and were holding meaningful conversations with their traveling companions instead of listening to the narrative. The general age demographic was middle age to seniors – they weren’t comfortable with the headset earphones and they wanted the more personal interaction with their companions.

Understanding the desires and capabilities of your audience can make a big difference in how you present information if you want to be successful in landing your messages. The scattergun approach of saying a particular media choice is appropriate for “all audiences” usually means “it works for me (the planner) so it ought to work for everyone.”

I’d encourage anyone who has the opportunity to take on a thoughtful planning process to give serious consideration to targeting specific interpretive components to specific audiences – children’s exhibits written and designed for children, publications for the scientific community written at their level of understanding of the subject matter, family programs that include activities suitable for a variety of age and physical limitations etc. instead of suggesting that more generic approaches will meet everyone’s interests. When you know your audience, your efforts become more focused. More focus usually means greater success in accomplishing your objectives.

And by the way, I rock at Wii ping-pong.