Planning interpretation

It is important to take a strategic approach to interpretation, to ensure that the interpretation works together to tell a coherent story, uses a range of interpretive media and has a coherent style. Before starting it’s helpful to have a clear idea of the museum’s vision, aims and outcomes. It can be useful to establish the outcomes, outputs and impact for the new interpretation – what do you want to achieve, what resources do you need and what will the long-term outcomes (or impact) be? The Heritage Fund guide to Evaluation has some helpful notes and tips on putting together a Logic Model before starting a project.

London Museum Development has some helpful notes and tips on putting together a Logic Model before starting a project.

Review

A review of the current visitor experience will enable you to identify the challenges and opportunities. Follow the visitor route, starting outside the building, and consider how people find their way around, as well as the exhibits. Identify the gaps in terms of the story told. Is it told from different perspectives? What are the hidden or untold stories? In order to appeal to a wide range of people, the story needs to enable people to connect, to find a voice which resonates for them.

Interpretive framework

An interpretive framework is a big table that sets out the key stories, gathered together into interpretive themes, alongside ideas for interpretation, and assets, such as key objects for display. The best place to start is with brainstorming the key stories that could be told for a particular topic, object or place. These can be refined and grouped together. Once you have a few key stories for each topic you are ready to create interpretive themes from the topics.

Case study – Wirksworth Heritage Centre

The Big Idea – “Wirksworth’s geology shaped its landscape, shaped its industry, shaped its people, shaped its spirit.”

Wirksworth Heritage Centre recently opened in a new building with new exhibitions which introduce visitors to the museum’s collection and the quirky town. The Big idea encapsulates what the museum is about, a series of Interpretive Themes bring together the key stories.

Interpretive themes:

• Wirksworth’s history as a mining and quarrying town has left a unique social, architectural and landscape legacy – both above and below ground.
• Wirksworth is and was a working place where people have used their skills and labour to improve their lives and their community.
• The Wirksworth Carnival, the Wirksworth Festival and traditions like Well Dressing and Clipping the Church are part of the town’s distinct character.
• The people and families of Wirksworth have helped to shape the history and character of the town.
• Wirksworth was and is an independentminded, nonconformist and creative place that has been an inspiration for art and literature.

And within each theme there is a series of key stories. The stories for the first theme are shown below.

Theme: history as a mining and quarrying town has left a unique social, architectural and landscape legacy – both above and below ground.

Key Stories:

• Roman lead mining
• Uses of lead
• T’Owd Man carving shows a medieval lead miner
• Tools for mining
• Rights to dig for ore & Royal Charter
• Families worked in the mines together
• Flooding of mines
• Limestone quarrying replaced lead mining industry

Interpretive themes

‘People remember themes. They forget facts.’ Dr Sam Ham

An interpretive theme is different to a topic. A theme should:

• Connect people to the subject
• Help them to learn something
• Have a greater impact.

Themes summarise the most important points. They are complete ideas that express a message or point of view and connect tangible objects with intangible ideas.

A topic might be: The development of Llandudno. The theme could be: Llandudno developed from quarrying villages into the Queen of the Welsh Resorts, based on land owned by the Mostyn family.

Lots of information can be found online about developing interpretive themes, often linked to the research by Dr Sam Ham or Freeman Tilden whose work at the National Parks of America developed a thematic approach to interpretation which has been adapted for museums and heritage.

The story we want to tell 

The story we want to tell, sometimes called the exhibition narrative, is the longhand version of the story or history. It’s not exhibition text but sets out clearly the information about each key story within the interpretive themes. For example, for each graphic panel of text you probably need about 350-400 words of information which you can draw on for writing about 100-150 words of interpretive text.

The Big Idea

The Big Idea is a defining statement, which encompasses the primary message we want to communicate to those engaging with the interpretation. It will provide people with an understanding of the history and what to expect while engaging with interpretation.

Interpretive media

Consider using a range of interpretive media to tell the story. People learn in different ways and like different types of media. Consider which stories appeal to which types of audience and present the story in a way that appeals to them. Use the Interpretive Framework to match interpretive media to the different stories. You might not be able to tell all the stories, keep some for when the displays change or present further information as leaflets or flipbooks, for those interested in finding out more.

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