AUDIENCE RESEARCH
The best public programming in the cultural sector starts with an understanding of our audiences.
I help heritage and cultural organisations build up a picture of their visitors – their expectations, their needs, their reactions to concepts and plans, their feelings, emotions and their learning outcomes. I talk with visitors and users, watch them, interview them, invite them to focus groups and listen to what they say. The results from audience-facing research help clients create programmes that are truly audience-focused.
National Railway Museum, York
2023
While designs for the forthcoming permanent gallery about Railway Futures were still being developed, I was commissioned to find out what visitors to the NRM associate with the future of the railways. Focus groups with target audneces, face-to-face interviews with visitors and a growing collaborative wall of ideas helped to inform the museum’s next steps…
Wallace Collection, London
2022
I was hired to facilitate conversations with staff and learning specialists who wanted to understand more about how Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent students engage with the gallery. We created an evaluation framework that doesn’t make use of questionnaires or form filling and is instead compassionate and audience-centred. And quite fun too.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
2018-19
To find out what visitors think of a year-long programme of interpretive interventions the Gallery made in its exhibition areas, I spent time watching and talking to people about their reactions to the changes - anything from rewriting labels to painting the walls bright yellow. The iterative testing process contributed to a development of interpretive thinking and practice.
Birdoswald Roman Fort, Cumbria
2016-17
This site on Hadrian’s Wall (operated by English Heritage) wanted to re-work the interpretive experience with families in mind. So I invited parents and children to attend a workshop day, telling me what they liked and disliked about the experience and reacting to a range of interpretive ideas. This then gave EH the confidence they needed to move forward with their plans.
British Library
2009-19
I have conducted formative and summative evaluation for over 20 temporary exhibitions at the Library, testing out ideas in development with members of the public. The feedback from this evaluation ensures the Library is able to deliver exhibitions that meet the needs and expectations of their visitors.
Other clients commissioning audience research consultant services include…
Science Museum Group – front-end evaluation of a season of videogaming across mutliple SMG sites (2021)
The Wallace Collection – evaluation framework for interpretive project taking place in care homes (2020)
People’s History Museum – summative evaluation of Represent! season (2018–19)
Royal Institute of British Architects – evaluation of the national Architecture Ambassadors school engagement project (2018–19)
Open City – summative evaluation of the London Open House Families weekend of activity (2018)
The British Library – three-year evaluation of a family and community engagement programme (2015–18)
The National Archives – summative evaluation of By Me, William Shakespeare exhibition and formative evaluation of new exhibition ideas for the future (2016)
English Heritage – formative testing of a set of potential new family guide leaflets at Scarborough Castle (2016)
The British Museum – iterative evaluation of a suite of family trails around the museum (2015)
Royal Festival Hall – visitor observation and journey mapping around the arts centre (2013)
English Heritage – front-end evaluation around the two-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo; formative testing in advance of a re-interpretation of Eltham Palace and front-end evaluation at Chiswick House (2013)
Imperial War Museum – summative evaluation of a Cecil Beaton exhibition (2012)
Design Museum – formative testing of ideas for a new exhibition about British design classics (2012)
National Maritime Museum – formative evaluation of handheld interactive experience for families (2012)
The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace – summative evaluation and visitor observation in a temporary exhibition (2012)
Imperial War Museum – front-end research around the First World War (2011) and formative evaluation with families of gallery text (2013)
Museum of Fulham Palace – formative evaluation about the re-development of the site (2010)