Exploring Satisfying Experiences in Museums

Abstract

A B s T R A c T This article presents results from an ongoing research project that investigates the experiences visitors find satisfying in museums. Using a list constructed from interviews with visitors and surveys, data were obtained from visitors in nine Smithsonian museums. Analysis of the results showed that experiences can be classified into four categories: Object experiences, Cognitive experiences, Introspective experiences, and Social experiences. The article points out that the type of most satisfying experience differs according to the characteristics of museums, exhibitions, and visitors. It also proposes an interpretation for these data, and suggests some possible applications.

Experience, engagement and social interaction at a steam locomotive multimodal interactive museum exhibit

“…Our study aims to explore in what way people utilise these resources, combining them to make meaning, how this relates to their experience of the exhibit and their engagement with the topic. As core aspects of the visitor experience we consider social interaction, role play, imagination, control, feedback, challenge, enjoyment, accomplishment, meaningfulness and motivation, based on prior research investigating experience and engagement within and outside of the museum context [2,3,6,7,9, 10]. Detailed research questions entail, for example: What modes are encouraging or hindering social interaction?…”

“…The presence of hands-on exhibits in science centers along with our familiarity of high quality media experiences in everyday life has increased our expectations of digital interactive exhibits in museums. Prior research has explored questions in the museum context relating to social interactions, 'hands-on' physical interaction, how people make sense of exhibits, visitor experience and 'minds-on' engagement [10, 1,5,7,8]. However, as increased access to affordable technology is supporting the development of novel multimodal exhibits there is a need to question the value and effectiveness of multimodal interactive exhibits in the museum context.…”

Design factors in the museum visitor experience

“…These research perspectives view the museum visitor experience as complex and multidimensional, incorporating the physical, intellectual, social, emotional and even the spiritual aspects of visitors (Pekarik, Doering, & Karns, 1999;Sheng & Chen, 2012). The challenge for researchers is thus to develop theoretical frameworks that have the capacity to incorporate the full spectrum of the visitor experience, ranging from the public and social aspects to the deeply personal.…”

“…Broadening the unit of analysis from individual exhibits to the museum experience more generally, Pekarik et al (1999) conducted interviews with visitors regarding what they found 'satisfying' about their visit. They thus identified four main categories of experience: object experiences; cognitive experiences; introspective experiences; and social experiences.…”

“…Although the tracked visitors and surveyed visitors are mostly different individuals, both are random samples of visitors to the same galleries, with sufficient similarities to suggest they are comparable. A similar rationale has been used to compare responses to separate entrance and exit surveys for the same exhibition (Pekarik et al, 1999). The overall participant sample is summarised visually in Figure 3.7.…”