Virtual Exhibit Case Study: Making Friends around American History

Let's imagine we’re building a virtual exhibit around The Smithsonian’s History of American in 101 Objects by Richard Kurin. How might we do it?

Personalizing Virtual Exhibits to Your Visitors

Personalized experiences empower visitors to sort through content and to select opportunities to interact with other visitors, allowing each visitor to focus on what they find meaningful and exciting.

For virtual exhibits, the medium is the message

UX design processes can help you take full advantage of the virtual medium to make a great exhibit.

Who is going to visit your virtual exhibit?

As an exhibit developer, my job is to create exhibits that engage visitors. In order to effectively do my job, I need to know who my visitors are. Unfortunately, few museums understand their in-person audiences and even fewer institutions profile their virtual visitors.

Everyone Evaluate!

Chicago Museum Exhibitors Group Meeting on Audience Research In developing her framework for judging exhibitions, Beverly Serrell, one of the founders of the field of audience research, said that she and her colleagues, "went from judging exhibitions, to judging ourselves." When we conduct audience research, we not only determine whether our exhibits are visitor-centered, but...

Networking as Community Building

This article was originally published on the National Emerging Museum Professionals blog. As soon as I graduated from my master’s program, I started avidly networking in order to find a job in the museum sector. However, as the months wore on and a year passed by, I felt extremely frustrated that my efforts had not...

The Five Components of a Great Museum Volunteer Program

Interview with Fran Mast, Research & Evaluation Associate at Shedd Aquarium As a museum professional, I’m always looking for opportunities to expand my horizons and I’ve found that volunteering is a great way to gain experience outside of my job. One of my volunteer gigs is at the Shedd Aquarium, where I collect and analyze...