Too often, museums focus on the exhibit without worrying about what precedes or what follows the experience for the visitor. If you think of the exhibit as the main course, the question becomes: where's the appetizer and what's for dessert? Or, if you're an athlete: what's the warm-up and the how do we cool down?

As a visitor comes off the street into your museum, what prepares that person, helps him become ready to go into the exhibit? Paco Underhill , drawing on thousands of hours of videotape, describes the speed people use when entering stores. Entering at walking speed, it takes about twenty feet to slow to browsing speed. My guess is it takes even longer for the mind to slow and clear, to concentration speed. What designs help someone entering your museum, or any particular special exhibit, slow down?

Underhill also points out that signs or objects placed within the first twenty feet of the entrance often go unnoticed as the shopper moves quickly past. If this is true for the shopper, what about the museum visitor? More important, though, than the physical slowing, is the process of letting go of distractions, traffic, parking jitters, and goodness knows what else.

The term transformation has become widely used to describe what museums do. They transform people. But in order for this to happen, people need preparation. Rarely do museums grapple with this issue of slowing down, getting rid of distractions, and setting the context for the individual to enjoy the exhibit.

What's for Dessert?

Once a visitor sees an exhibit, particularly one with transformative potential, how does the visitor to integrate the experience? The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington deliberately provided a reflective space, a hall of remembrance. Fred Wilson's exhibits, which have occurred across the country, are disturbing, insightful. They cause us to pause and re-examine. When Fred talks about an exhibit, he talks about designs intended to initiate dialogue, but where, in fact, does the dialogue really happen? Often, galleries stay silent.

I propose that every exhibit that aims to transform needs to have at least one, if not several, different spaces in which people are encouraged to interact in the exhibit, to talk, to cry, to scream, to explore further, to hear of other's experiences, and not simply to go through the exhibit as an isolated person or small group. But, to hear what others have to say, to actually digest. To give time for the thoughts and the mind and the heart to work. In many cases, we don't fully understand something until we begin to try to put it into words and express it. As we hear ourselves express it, we further refine and understand it. When we do this with others, particularly with those with different viewpoints, a true dialogue begins.

An expert trainer, Robert Pike, founder of Creative Training Techniques reports that in his training experience:

We retain

• 10% of what we read.
• 20% of what we hear.
• 30% of what we see.
• 50% of what we hear and see.
• 70% of what we say.
• 90% of what we say and do.

If true, this means that in most museums, we retain at the see level. If we take an audio tour or participate in a live demonstration, we may achieve fifty percent retention.

A dialogue between people moves retention to seventy percent, but we can argue that most museum experiences fail to achieve this level. We may talk with a friend, unless the security guards or other visitors "hush" us into silence or strained whispers.

When a talking space is not available we may retain thirty percent of the learning. With skilled conversationalists in museum talking spaces to initiate dialogue, nurture participation and deepen the conversations, museums may more than double the learning. I envision a room which invites people in for dialogue with one another. I can see volunteers, selected and trained to initiate and facilitative conversations with strangers, to deepen the experience.

Now, I walk out of a transformative exhibit and I walk into the shopping mall, the retail store, the food service. Or, I walk directly out on the street. Or, worst of all, I walk back the way I entered and the process becomes disrupted, not come quite full circle.