Judging Exhibitions: A Framework For Assessing Excellence

Renowned museum consultant and researcher, Beverly Serrell and a group of museum professionals from the Chicago area have developed an objective and generalizable framework by which the quality of museum exhibitions can be judged from the perspective of the visitor’s experience. Using criteria, such as comfort, engagement, reinforcement, and meaningfulness, they have produced a useful tool for other museum professionals to better evaluate the effectiveness of museum exhibitions and thereby to improve their quality. Tested in a dozen institutions by the research team, this step-by-step approach to evaluation of exhibitions will be of great value to museum directors, exhibit developers, and evaluators.