A poem: Inspiration first. / If you inspire them first, / You can educate. / It will never work / In the other direction. / Not in exhibits. / We can’t say, “Now learn!” / We must woo the audience. / Immerse them first. Quick.

Visitors don’t perceive architecture and exhibitions as separate. They’re part of one experience. We develop and fund them separately, but that’s just us. Architecture can be awesome, in the real sense of the word: “causing awe.”

Ironically, a typical rare book on display — say, that Gutenberg Bible of yours — can’t be read. It’s beige, dimly lit, filled with text in a dead language, and behind glass at an angle.

Even if it were none of that, it shows two random pages. And even it were an English-language romance thriller about Taylor Swift that visitors can browse for free, no one came to read.

Exhibitions, like movies, are primarily visual. You can watch good movies with the sound off. Some films have no words at all. But you can’t have one with only words. Exhibits are the same.

Let’s test that real quick. Which would you rather visit?

In the real world, we expect a sound to naturally emanate from its source. The happy toot of a baby elephant emanates from a baby elephant. Not the sky, the ground, or a nearby fern.

It should work the same in our exhibitions. Those happy toots should come from speakers as close as possible to the elephant's on-screen image.

Exhibits are like Dr. Seuss machines.
They change minds. And, do you know what that means?
Our visitors – isn’t it sad, they don’t know
The facts about forks that we all love so.

Sometimes, a problem is an opportunity in disguise. Next time one comes up in a planning discussion, try the Evil Smile Excellent trick. It might change the conversation.

It requires some acting. Here’s how it works:

First, state the problem seriously, with professional concern.

Nothing dulls faster than the cutting edge.

Say it again with me.

Nothing dulls faster than the cutting edge.

Products are things we value: cars, cappuccinos, feature films. We choose to pay money willingly for them. Campaigns promote products: car ads, coffee shop window clings, movie stars on talk shows. We don’t pay for campaigns with our money. But we do pay, unwillingly, with our attention.

So is an exhibition a product or a campaign?

At the start of an exhibition project, you don't know where you'll end. You have a vague goal, a team of people and a blank sheet of paper. Terrifying. But make no small steps. Small steps feel safer. But at the start of a project, small steps will kill it. Drain the budget. Put it in a coma.

All visitor experience projects express a point of view. So should we develop projects for people that already agree with it? Or that don’t? A client of mine once explained how they plan budgets for PR campaigns on social issues. There are five groups for any issue:

Do we want our visitors to become lost?

A. NO
B. YES
C. BOTH

Here's a quick way to gut-check whether an experiential idea is going to work — before you commit time and money to developing it. Take any idea being considered, put it in the blank in the following sentence, and say it out loud:

There are three aging speeds to consider in every project: Building Speed, Furniture Speed, and Technology Speed. (Here come more animal metaphors.)

The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world. It was once stolen and later returned, which only made it more famous. On its own, it attracts about 30,000 people. A day.

There are two other variations on "streakers, strollers and scholars" (aka, the psychographics of attention span). One of these might work better for you.

We can think about our visitors using demographics: age, gender, and religion. We can sort them by psychographics: lifestyle, political affiliation, and values. But I prefer to plan according to attention span: streakers, strollers, and scholars.

There is a paradox at the heart of every visitor center project: if it's so fantastic that people never want to leave — it's a total failure.

In ancient times, shortly after life emerged from the sea, movies came on DVDs. “Special collector’s editions” had a second disk with “extra” content. This was for early life forms who loved bloopers.

Every Imagineer (designer, in Disney-speak) knows that attractions need an iconic skyline. Space Mountain, for example, looks like a giant ... space mountain. There are two strategies here: