Hi Reader,

Happy 2025, everyone! Based on these first two weeks, I feel confident in saying that it's going to be... a year. Hope you are hanging in there, wherever you are.

On a Zoom call last week, someone asked about the plushies on the bookshelf behind me. (Two gorillas and a red panda. The wolverine is off-camera; he's shy.) The short explanation you may already know: I'm a zoo and aquarium person, from way back.

I started my evaluation career in the Exhibition & Graphic Arts Department at the zoos and aquarium of WCS. (Shout out to the mid-aughts EGAD diaspora! May Bagel Day live on in your hearts, always.)

In those early days as an in-house evaluator, I learned how evaluation can help designers and educators do their work. It also immersed me in how visitors use, think about, and make sense of a fundamental piece of museums: The ID Label.

This month, let's round-up a few things we've learned and seen about that most humble (but well-used) of labels: the animal / object / specimen ID.

Also included is:

• Further reading, courtesy of the Wayback Machine, about what visitors actually want and need in ID labels.
• An early start to the spring conference season at NSTA!

Cheers,

Jessica

ID Labels: I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes.

If you're not a museum person, ID Labels are the ones that offer you fundamental information about the stuff. Whether you're looking at an artifact, animal, plant, specimen, or work of art, the ID label identifies the thing you're looking at.

In art museums, they call it the Tombstone. (Evocative, right?)

In zoos and aquariums, we're talking about Animal or Species IDs. (You can imagine why "tombstone" is not appropriate in that setting.)

In natural history museums, they might be called Specimen IDs. (I suppose "tombstone" could be a little too appropriate in that setting, huh?)

Whatever you call them, ID Labels answer the most critical question visitors have: What is it?

A conversation with a very experienced exhibit designer got me thinking about things we've learned over the years about visitors and ID labels. A lot comes from my years in zoos and aquariums. But much of it will ring true for other settings. Because visitors are visitors.

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Answer Question #1: What is it?

It's not revolutionary. But it's true. Visitors come to your institution to see the stuff. If you don't answer the most fundamental of their questions -- what am I looking at? -- nothing else is likely to stick.

ID labels use very few words to convey key information. And when you have few words, you must choose those words very wisely. Knowing what your visitors actually want to know is key.

Spoiler Alert: Vanishingly few visitors care about technical terms and details (*cough* scientific name *cough*).

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The Signs People Read

ID Labels are not interpretive. They are the Joe Friday of labels: "Just the facts, ma'am." They are the most-used labels, but they aren't built to help convey your exhibit's Big Idea.

Unless.

With an ID/caption label combo, you essentially pivot the "what is it" curiosity into a focused message of how it illustrates the Big Idea. You can get a lot of bang for the interpretive buck.

Writing captions and other labels is beyond my expertise! If you want more, get your hands on Exhibit Labels. Beverly and Katherine know what they're doing. (Not a sponsored post. It's just good stuff.)

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The Match Game

To do its job, the ID has to clearly link to the thing it is identifying. Sound easy? I'm going to guess you've never designed an exhibit space.

An even bigger design challenge is multi-species or multi-object displays. How will visitors know which "tombstone" goes with which thing?

Visitors inevitably end up playing The Match Game. I've seen different degrees of scaffolding to help you match "thing I see" with a label to achieve the goal "get name."

• The "Good luck, it made sense to us!": Unassisted ID information that, I'm sure, is very intuitive to someone.
• Spatial Reasoning: Directional text to indicate the relationship between columns of IDs and objects' position (left-to-right; top-to-bottom; clockwise; etc.).
• Number Lookup: Just like the checking the answers to your math homework in the back of the book.
• Shadow Box: IDs accompanied by a silhouette of the object it refers to (often amidst outlines of other items in the case or diorama).
• Picture This: Using an image of the animal or object to match up with the ID (the only viable solution in zoos and aquariums because, you know, animals move).

I haven't come across a systematic study comparing clarity and usability of types of IDs. (Anyone funding or doing fundamental research about evergreen tools of the trade?) But from anecdotal observations and my own spatially-challenged experience, watching closely to see how hard visitors have to work to connect the dots and when they give up could reveal a great deal.

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Print ID Labels: The Amazing Technology of the Human Neck & Eyes

The thing about print ID labels with pictures is they are so easy for visitors. They use the unbeatable technology of human necks, eyes, and a brain that evolved for processing visual information! A visitor turns their head, glances, finds a visual match, and is back to watching the fish. It takes two seconds. They've invested minimal effort, used instinct, and got the info they wanted. Ease-Reward-Repeat.

But as easy as it is for visitors, an exhibit designer recently reminded me, the creation of labels that achieve that magic is not nearly as simple. Paraphrased:

As with most things, it takes a lot of expertise and effort to create a designed environment that ultimately feels effortless for visitors.

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Digital ID Labels: Flexibility + Learning Curve

There have been lots of innovations in digital technologies for ID labels. Static (but editable) digital labels. Touch screens. I recently heard of an AI tool for multi-species exhibits.

Their biggest benefit is flexibility. Especially for our zoo and aquarium friends, species on display can change suddenly, and print ID labels can't keep up.

But having watched a lot of visitors in exhibits, any digital tech adds a less-intuitive layer to getting information. (Until the Matrix wires directly into our brains, there is a learning curve.) And that can be enough to make some visitors give up on IDs.

• How many clicks does it take to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop? Every additional click to the payoff is another click harder than print.
• How clunky is that click? If a touch screen is any less responsive than a smart phone, visitors will give up. Or pound your screen into oblivion.
• How durable is it? If the majority of visitors are under age 12, your tech needs to be military-grade tough. (Ask anyone at a children's museum.)

Any digital tech adds a layer of figuring out the payoff and how to get the payoff. Some folks just aren’t that invested in that question.

Also, as we've discussed before, we've been seeing visitors less and less attentive to screens during their visits. I'd be remiss not to mention it.

Real World Example:

Here's a moment that solidified my rethinking of the ID labels and the print/digital divide. A couple of years back, Michelle and I did extensive timing and tracking of visitor behavior within three exhibits at one institution.

In an exhibit that used primarily digital ID labels (touch screens): We saw 23% of visitors use those labels at least once during a visit. Not bad!

But in the two exhibits that relied on old-timey print IDs? We saw 40-50% of visitors use those labels. And use them more often.*

*And we suspect this is an undercount. Without eye-tracking sensors (which is a thing used to study this topic in depth), we relied on movements of the head or pointing. If any visitors "side-eye" read a label, we probably missed it.

Does that mean we should abandon digital IDs? Of course not. Those observations did not capture potential issues:

• Visitors looking for animal X and only found pictures of animals Y and Z.
• Visitors who would have used more info than just name (which was about the extent of print ID space).
• Visitors who couldn't tell the difference between animal Q and animal P from 2x2 pictures.

The question of what and how we use labels -- even this, the most humble of styles -- is one deserving of a lot more thought, intentionality, and (dare I say) evaluation.

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Anyone else thinking about the deceptive simplicity of ID labels? Hit reply and tell me more.

Want Even More about ID Labels?

Hop in the Wayback Machine with me for a minute.

Back in the aughts, I was part of an in-house evaluation team that published a couple of studies related to ID Labels. The studies were in zoos, but I suspect they have parallels for all other museums.

(OK, I don't know what the art museum parallel to "gestation period" would be. But I'm sure there is one. And, come to think of it, that might be more interesting about a work of art than an animal!)

Credit to colleagues I had the good fortune of working with and learning from on these projects in those WCS heydays -- John Fraser (now at Alaska SeaLife Center), Jessica Bicknell (now at the Penn Museum), and Anthony Taylor (professor emeritus, SUNY Cortland).

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Article 1: What information visitors want to see on ID labels (beyond the name). And, importantly, what info they couldn't care less about. Published in the Journal of Interpretation Research.

Article 2: Geography knowledge (or lack thereof) when trying to identify where something is from. Spoiler alert: you need a map... of the hemisphere. Published in Visitor Studies Today.

On the Road Again

Where you can find JSC team members out in the wild:

National Science Teachers Association Conference (Philly, March 27-29): Jessica will be giving a talk detailing what we've learned about how visual art pedagogy can improve data literacy in science classrooms. And I think there will be presentations from some of our other project partners. Stay tuned!

I'm so excited to spend a few days hanging out with some of the coolest people in the world -- science teachers! Anyone else going? Email me and let's plan to meet up!

P.S. Got a question you'd like us to answer in an upcoming newsletter? Hit reply and tell me what's on your mind!

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Why the "Evaluation Therapy" Newsletter?

The moniker is light-hearted. But the origin is real. I have often seen moments when evaluation causes low-key anxiety and dread, even among evaluation enthusiasts. Maybe it feels like a black-box process sent to judge your work. Maybe it’s worry that the thing to be evaluated is complicated, not going to plan, or politically fraught. Maybe pressures abound for a "significant" study. Maybe evaluation gets tossed in your "other duties as assigned" with no support. And so much more.

Evaluation can be energizing! But the reality of the process, methods, and results means it can also feel messy, risky, or overwhelming.

I've found that straightforward conversation about the realities of evaluation and practical solutions can do wonders. Let's demystify the jargon, dial down the pressure, reveal (and get past) barriers, and ultimately create a spirit of learning (not judging) through data. This newsletter is one resource for frank talk and learning together, one step at a time.

​Learn more about JSC and our team of evaluators. Or connect with us on LinkedIn:

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