Ethics

Our new-look gallery will include interactives and areas in which visitors can view video clips and use listening posts. The approach we have taken is to leave ourselves room for manoeuvre.

We will redisplay a few exhibits, install a few of the interactives and then adapt our plans and layouts for a full redisplay, depending on the way visitors respond. We are interested in questions such as how to maximise the effect of interpretive aids, how best to meet the needs of people of different ages and how to encourage discussion about the exhibits between visitors in family groups.

We initially wanted to get feedback solely from questionnaires but we now feel it would be best to make direct but unobtrusive observations. What ethical considerations do we need to bear in mind, if any?


The Code of Ethics for Museums urges all those who work for or govern museums to 'improve the quality of experience for all users'(3.1). Visitor studies are invaluable in helping designers and museum staff do that.

To discover what works in making collections accessible and enhancing the visitor experience museums should use a variety of research methods. It may be appropriate to ask visitors to complete questionnaires and to conduct 'field' observations. All methods have their advantages and disadvantages as practical tools. And all are surrounded by ethical considerations.

The practical and the ethical are related. For example, staff who are to interview visitors will need training in customer care to ensure that information is gathered both effectively and sensitively. The Market Research Society advises that children under 16 should not be interviewed without the permission and presence of parents or carers.

If the information they yield is to have any validity, verbal or written questions need to be couched in appropriate non-threatening, easily interpretable language. It may be important to find a place to sit away from exhibits to ensure visitors have the right level of comfort and privacy.

Assurances have to be given about the right to anonymity and the right to decline follow-up contact by phone or letter. While you may wish to keep names and addresses for follow-up research, the Data Protection Act requires that they be separated from questionnaire responses. Visitors should have the right to refuse to answer questions and you will need to make clear the uses to which any information visitors give will be put.

It may be that layout and design decisions to benefit future visitors can only be informed by using field observation because no other method will, for example, reveal details of social interaction around exhibits. But as well as a clear rationale you will need an understanding of best practice in carrying out observation, which should never interfere with visitor experience.

For the observation to be effective and ethical no visitor should feel inhibited. You need to be particularly careful that observation is professionally conducted and with the explicit consent of those observed.

A member of staff should be around to respond to enquiries about the project and to reassure visitors that if they are in any way unhappy, information will not be used. A useful technique is the accompanied visit where visitors are invited to tour the museum with an observer.

For further information contact the Visitor Studies Group through its website: www.visitors.org.uk. The Market Research Society has a useful code of conduct (www.mrs.org.uk). The code explains the legal and ethical reasons why covert, non-consensual observation is discouraged in market research.