Evaluating Online Experiences

Nearly one year into the pandemic, evaluators have been adapting tried-and-true in-person data collection methods to work with COVID-19 restrictions across the country. In this session, you will learn about in-person methods and protocols that are working, what has not worked as well, and worries that turned out to be non-issues. If you are getting ready to embark on in-person data collection, bring your questions! Presenters: Claire Thoma Emmons is the Research and Evaluation Associate at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Despite initial concerns about conducting any face-to-face data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic, evaluators and exhibit developers have now successfully completed several front-end, prototyping, and user-testing studies on the museum floor. She will discuss the methods chosen or adapted for each of these studies as well as strategies and tips for recruiting visitors from the floor. Kari Ross Nelson is the Research and Evaluation Associate at Thanksgiving Point Institute, a Farm, Garden, and Museum complex in Lehi, Utah. In efforts to help understand visitor experiences as museums reopen with health and safety protocols in place, she has conducted short interviews and timing and tracking in multiple venues. Kari will share what we did and what we learned from these evaluation activities. Meghan Kroning is the Project Coordinator and Jenn Shepard is the Project Evaluator for Visitor Research and Evaluation at the Exploratorium. While the Exploratorium closed to the public in March 2020, the museum’s new exhibit development continued. To evaluate exhibit usability while meeting regional COVID-19 health and safety regulations, Megan and Jenn piloted a new method of outdoor-only, socially distant exhibit testing. They will share the planning and logistics behind this method, as well as lessons learned along the way.