Ensuring Relevance for 21st-Century Audiences
Our senior class came to DC expecting to have fun and maybe learn about government and politics. I don’t think any of us expected to learn about humanity.— Mandy, an Iowa City high school student
Over the course of 25 years, the Museum has attracted 43 million people — many urged to come because of personal recommendations. The Museum, visitors say, is a uniquely meaningful experience. But in a constantly changing world, how do we ensure that the Museum’s exhibitions connect with all the Mandys of the world — now and for the next quarter century?
To better understand our visitors and how they engage with the Museum and the Holocaust, the Museum has embarked on an ambitious audience research effort as an early step in a seven-year process to revitalize the Permanent Exhibition (generously funded by the Hillside Foundation — Allan and Shelley Holt). Partnering with IDEO, a Palo Alto-based firm that specializes in “human-centered design” (see Q&A, below), the research project is led by a core team of Museum education, exhibition, and evaluation experts. “As the Holocaust recedes in time, what connections are people no longer making to the history, and what additional context do we need to provide?” asked Sarah Ogilvie, Museum deputy director and chief program officer. “In order to revitalize an exhibition that has had tremendous staying power and relevance, we first need to better understand what audiences today know about the Holocaust.”
Asking the Right Questions
Recognizing that the current exhibition is still so powerful with visitors, the team has established for itself a mandate to “do no harm.” This guiding principle led the Museum to engage IDEO for an 18-month project that encompasses survey design; staff training in research methods, data collection, and analysis; in-depth sessions with specific groups; and prototyping new exhibition techniques. All of these methods taken together will provide the most complete picture of how visitors experience and interpret the Permanent Exhibition.
Most of the work is taking place from March through August of this year and includes:
- surveying 1,800 randomly selected adult visitors
- observing visitors as they walk through the exhibition and interviewing them about their experience
- surveying visitors several weeks after they have left the Museum to understand the impact of the exhibition
- conducting in-depth research activities with priority audiences — young adults, school groups, and leaders — including in-person conversations before, during, and after they tour the exhibition to understand how their values, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors intersect with their experience at the Museum.
The project will demand a large investment of staff time, which is by design, said Sarah Lumbard, director of Museum experience and digital media. “Not only do we want to get a much better understanding of our visitors, we’re looking to learn from IDEO and model their approach going forward, so we can continue to do this kind of work on our own. It’s very much a partnership and that’s why we selected them.”
Key to the process has been development of a set of guiding principles to ensure the research will generate actionable findings for the revitalization — not reams of data that would sit on a shelf gathering dust, according to Rebekah Sobel, manager of planning and evaluation. For example, past research has shown that visitors talk about emotional and experiential moments from the exhibition, such as the room displaying victims’ shoes or the three-story tower displaying prewar photographs from one Jewish community (the Yaffa Eliach Shtetl Collection). The research team is collecting responses from visitors that could aid in creating more such experiences that have lasting impact. “Further, all the data we collect will provide a baseline for us to measure change in our audiences over time,” Sobel said.
Prioritizing Key Audiences
The team had to prioritize which visitors to study. Which audiences were the most important to engage and impact with knowledge of this history? This research project will hone in on three audiences: young adults, school groups, and leaders. Researchers will follow members of those groups from the start to the finish of their Museum experience.
“Groups come to the Museum for insight into the power of the individual, the responsibilities of citizenship, and to probe what it means to be a member of a global community,” Lumbard said. “Understanding our audiences is key to being part of a conversation with new generations of leaders, who might arrive at the Museum with different knowledge and expectations than those who have come before.” The results of the audience research project will help staff evaluate how any changes to the exhibition may affect the Museum’s appeal for the priority audiences.
The exhibition was designed to establish the Holocaust as an important and relevant topic in American society, and it has exceeded that goal far beyond the Museum founders’ vision and expectations. As the Holocaust recedes in time, Museum staff are dedicated to ensuring that visitors from new generations continue to find lessons for their own lives in this history.
A Conversation with Peter Jackson, IDEO Portfolio Director
What’s distinctive about IDEO’s research methodology?
Jackson: IDEO’s human-centered design methodology is grounded in the belief that gaining a deep understanding of our audiences’ needs and mindsets will lead to new forms of engagement. This approach works well for museums because they are so relentlessly focused on the visitor experience.
How do you begin an assignment like this?
Jackson: As designers, we always start by connecting with a diverse set of visitors to gain empathy for their experience. What do visitors to the Museum carry with them? What beliefs do they take away? How might we make the experience feel more relevant to today’s visitors and ensure that future generations never stop asking “why?” A team of us from IDEO is asking these questions and many more as we partner with the Museum to better understand what visitors’ expectations are when they arrive, and what questions and ideas about their visit still resonate four weeks after they leave.
We’re working with a fantastic team at the Museum to connect with visitors, including for an entire day with a few key audiences, both inside and outside the Museum. Our research will provide Museum staff with principles, data, and support that can help inform the next iteration of the exhibition.
What’s it like working on a project such as this one, which has the potential to contribute to a less violent world?
Jackson: The Museum has made a personal impression on the IDEO design team. Most of us first visited the Museum many years ago as students and were deeply moved by the artifacts and testimonies. We know the power of this place to honor, to teach, and most important, to cause us to question the world around us. We believe that we have an awesome responsibility as we work alongside the Museum staff.
We’re teaching the Museum staff human-centered research methods to ensure they have the tools to build out their vision over time. It’s invigorating to see Museum staff embrace this approach and connect more deeply with the people they serve.
This article was first published in Summer 2018.
