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Four Ways to Think About Group Composition
Imagine it is the height of summer and you are visiting a historic site on your own. It’s a sprawling space with multiple buildings, outdoor activities, and interpretive programs – and it’s really busy. There are visitors everywhere. Kids are shouting and running past you, there’s a group of older adults who have overtaken the…
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The Potentials and Pitfalls of Self-Reported Data
What do surveys, interviews and focus groups all have in common? They’re all ways of collecting self-reported data. Anytime a visitor tells you about their experience, you are getting self-reported data. This means they’re sharing information about themselves without any external verification. For example, if a visitor selects their age range in a survey you…
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Mistakes I’ve Made: Surveys (Part 3)
Imagine that you’ve just written an amazing survey. The questions are clear and useful. The font size is just right. You just need people to fill it in. That’s the easy part, right? Welcome to the third, and final, blog of this series, Mistakes I’ve Made: Surveys. The goal of this series is to share…
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Mistakes I’ve Made: Surveys (Part 2)
Welcome to Part 2 of Mistakes I’ve Made: Surveys. In this series, I’m sharing what I’ve learned about surveys in the past few years so you can learn from them. In Part 1, I shared some challenges with phrasing questions, especially ones that seem like they should be simple. Today, I’ll be covering what I’ve…
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Mistakes I’ve Made: Surveys (Part 1)
Surveys are a staple in visitor studies. They are this – almost magical – tool you can use to ask deep questions that help you understand visitor’s motivations, experiences, values in addition to collecting demographics. They can be long or short. Online or in person. You can translate them into different languages and collect data…
TM Visitor Studies 