This report describes an internship at Glasgow Science Centre, in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The internship was integrated into the Floor 1 Refresh Project and in the field of exhibit analysis and improvement. In this work, we consider that exhibits are the interactive objects that explain a certain scientific phenomenon through their use, in science centres and museums.
The F1 project consists in reorganising and improving the entire gallery on the Floor 1, but the internship itself focused on a specific cluster of exhibits and in testing new ways of interpretation (referring to the interpretative labels fixed on the exhibits). After doing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis on the Floor 1 and sharing some general ideas, the work focused on a Prototype Exhibit Cluster with four exhibits regarding the theme of the Sound: the Singing Bowl, the How does the Sound move through air, the Guitar Oscilloscope and the Xylophone and the Soundbox. Different interpretative labels were tried as well as different placements with a randomly selected audience. The original labels in the shape of prisms were tested, as well as some prototype new texts in simple panels with curiosities about sound. It started with front-end evaluation with one observation of the visitor’s interaction with the exhibits as they were before. Then, the exhibits were moved to create the Prototype Sound Cluster and it was made a formative evaluation with two more observations with the new prototype texts. Time spent in each exhibit was tracked as well as signs of Learning Behaviours and the results were treated to access the Visitor Engagement Profile of the exhibits. Final interviews with other visitors and some staff were also made. The data collected, allowed to test gradually changes in the
exhibits during this short prototyping process. The interviews help to understand improvements to make in these exhibits for the future
