Thank you for all the interesting replies I received about different styles
of comments boards. They were very inventive and I will definitely be
trying some out. I enclose the replies I received for the information of
list members.
Replies from GEM and VSG email list re Comments Boards July 2003
You may have read an article written by Alison Cox and I in an old engage
review (maybe 1996 or 97) about the comments book we tried out for our
'Picturing Blackness' exhibition (Tate).
Our motivation was that we felt it was too superficial to just invite
comments in an entirely open way. We had on our 'educator's hats' so we
asked big political/philosophical questions throughout the book on random
pages. The reaction was heated as many people thought it was highly
patronising, given the very sensitive nature of the exhibition and the
Tate's history. However, we also placed a similar comments book in the Bill
Woodrow sculpture exhibition - which was in a more central hall-like space
and it was just filled with scribble and graffiti. This showed how different
exhibitions can encourage such very different reactions and behaviours.
Anyway, if your exhibition is more exploratory and aimed at families etc,
I'd suggest that it would be appropriate to ask them to think something
quite specific to make their comment meaningful e.g. what thing do you want
to try for yourself or find out when you get home/what will you remember/
what did you spend most time on. You'll also want to know a general mood so
you could put up some big words like COOL, ExCITING, NOT FOR ME etc with
columns underneath. Give people stars to put under each column....
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
I've used smiley faces (from Symbols on Word) for evaluation of Discovery on
the Move, for children. Have also seen, at Eureka I think, an interactive
that used ink stamps with a series of faces/emotions for children to express
how they felt that day - could be applied to your exhibition proposals, e.g.
'this makes me feel........happy......sad........bored........puzzled'
depending on the face.
Christine McLean, Interpretation & Outreach Officer, NMS - Public
Programmes, Chambers Street , Edinburgh EH1 1JF Tel: 0131 247 4199
I've not used this in galleries but when training volunteers for overseas
work. Draw a pie chart; each slice is something you want to evaluate.
Include something you can pretty much predict the response to, e.g. a old
favourite exhibit. To make it clear where they should put their mark: put
an unhappy smiley in the centre and a smiley smiley on the circle's edge.
Using a supply of felt tips stickers ask visitors to mark how they feel
about various proposals by putting a dot either close to the centre of the
relevant wedge for bad or the edge of the circle for good (and anywhere in
between for degrees of good/bad). Once you have 20+ dots you get a great
visual impression of how people feel about something, avoiding literacy
issues and enabling those who like to work visually. Hope that's clear, it
is a really visual tool so it's difficult to explain in words!
Anne Cunningham [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
When I set up a fashion exhibition at Chertsey Museum, I made a 'corset'
shaped corkboard to be used as a chat back wall for visitor comments, which
was quite successful. The Crafts Council uses different methods for visitor
comments, maybe you could try them too
Sarah Lewis, Cultural Entitlement Officer, Learning & Culture- Cultural
Services, Oxfordshire County Council T: 01993 814109
For younger visitors I often use a blank face with eyes for them to add a
mouth with a smile, a straight line or a down turned mouth.
Ruth Kerr, Learning Development Officer, Milestones - Hampshire's living
history museum
Tel (Basingstoke) 01256 477766 Fax 01256 477784
The smiley faces sound good to me - Alison James and I are working on a
project in at present where we have asked visitors to the museum to write on
post-its telling us about which label they prefer and why. This seems to
work very well. "Post-its" are very good for people to add a few comments.
You do need to offer a question to focus their response e.g. Is the content
of the labels appropriate? and people will respond with some interesting
feedback.
Kate [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
At Wollaton Hall we have a temporary exhibition for the same purpose
(potential HLF funded project). It explains what will happen at the Hall if
we get funding and asks what visitors would be interested in. We have
comments cards, and also 'voting tubes' so that visitors can request tokens
from reception and vote for the top 3 methods of interpretation that they
would like to see e.g. storytelling, tours, hands-on objects etc. This
seems to work.
Jo Kemp, Education & Access Manager, Nottingham City Museums & Galleries,
Nottingham Castle, Nottingham, NG1 6EL
Email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
We are currently doing exactly the same at Walsall Museum - using our old
permanent gallery as a consultation exhibition to feed into our bid to the
HLF later this year. We have been using it as the basis for focus groups but
also wanted to get less formal feedback so as well as surveys carried out by
our front of house staff, we have a 'ballot box' asking people to vote on a
topic of the month (e.g. two local celebrities, two local beauty spots).
This has worked very well as it's a quick thing for visitors to do, and
quite a lot of people have put further comments on the bottom of the slip -
in fact if doing it again, I would probably ask for comments just to prompt
some more. Other than that, we always have comments cards available in our
exhibitions. We just use plain A5 cards, and stick them up on the wall as
they are filled in. This has given us some really lovely comments, and once
you start sticking them up, everyone wants to see theirs up too - we now
have two walls in our temporary exhibition gallery covered in them!
Rosie Barker
Walsall Museum
Hello - at Hackney Museum we commissioned a series of attractive postcards
which visitors are invited to post into post boxes around the museum. The
comments are then put on display on special pin boards in the museum. They
are very heavily used - many are also taken away by visitors to use as
postcards - which we view as a useful PR investment. I can send some to you
if you're interested
Fiona Davison
Head of Hackney Museum
Valerie
Valerie Wardlaw
Access and Learning Officer
Worcestershire County Museum
Hartlebury Castle
nr Kidderminster
DY11 7XZ
Tel: 01299 250416
Fax: 01299 251890
email [log in to unmask]
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