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Article on Information
Design
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models | processes |
Originally published in the first quarter 1998 issue of Performance Improvement.
"What separates a museum worth suffering for from one you wouldn't stoop to be sick in?" asks Judith Stone (1993). As a regular visitor to museums, I know what my preferences are. They reflect my training as a technical writer and as an instructional designer.
But what do the people who actually design museum exhibits think and how are their thoughts translated into practice? What do they think is good exhibit design?
More specifically, I wondered how museum staffs design exhibits? Who participates in the design process? What issues do these people consider? What role does previous experience play? Research? Personal preferences? Instructional design theories? Do certain factors have more influence than others? Finally, could this understanding of museum exhibit design offer insights for more effective instructional design?
To find out, I asked exhibit designers. I interviewed them about their design practices, examined their design documents, and looked at the resulting exhibits through their eyes. Then I examined this data through mine. In that analysis, a model of exhibit design emerged. It characterizes the design process as a series of decisions in which designers balance four key components. What’s interesting is that, even though the people designing museum exhibits believe that they are designing instructional programs, the model of design emerging from their work does not look like the models presented in instructional design texts, like the Dick and Carey Model (1990).
In this article, I present that model. After describing this study, I introduce the model and its main components, then describe each component in detail. Next, I describe how the components interact with one another, then identify the people who participate in design decisions. Last, I explore the difference between the model that emerged from the study and more commonly known models of instructional systems design, and suggest implications of those differences to instructional designers.
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(c) Copyright. 1998. Saul Carliner. All rights reserved.
