Installation 7: Way-Finding Goes Awry (you may want to read Installation 6)

Just as James Trehorn was thinking of convening the first meeting of the Picchu! Art of the Ancient Incas Opening Reception Working Team (a title he chose himself), a crisis hit the museum. Although signs, kiosks and an information desk complete with racks of maps had been in place for many years, they stopped working. Like bacteria mutating and becoming resistant to antibiotics, visitors no longer seemed to see the signs, read the kiosks or be able to comprehend the maps. Patrons were found in all sorts of nooks and crannies seeking amenities or exhibits that were often located on a different level of the museum altogether.

On a Tuesday morning, a middle-aged woman was found slumped in front of a the medieval armor, desperate for a skim chai latte but unable to navigate to Art Respite Cafe in the lobby. The next day, an angry man marched to the information desk and threw a wadded-up museum map at Lois Carpenter, a three-time Star Performer Volunteer, claiming it was impossible to locate Russian Iconography; that he'd wandered through all of Africa and Asia and found himself back where he'd started, at Abstract Expressionism, and it was all he could do not to spit on the Jackson Pollock. Lois burst into tears and went to the volunteer break room to eat fig newtons, leaving new volunteer Darcy Miller alone to bear the wrath of a young mother with a three-year-old with urine-soaked pants. The mother had been unable to locate a restroom in time.

The mishaps didn't stop there. Phoebe, upon entering the converted closet that served as a copy room, discovered another young mother changing her baby's diaper on top of the Xerox machine.

“What are you doing in here?” Phoebe had never been to the museum's customer service seminar and cared not one bit if she sounded accusatory.

“What does it look like?” The mother clearly had her hackles up.

“But this is a copy room. For making copies. Employees only.”

“Well, if you don't want people in here, you should have signs clearly marking the bathroom.”

“But there are...”

“I looked!” The mother was as red as her baby's bottom, whihc seemed to be covered with a rash.

“Well... I'm sorry about that.”

The mother put on the new diaper, threw everything into a diaper bag and scooped the infant up.

“Just get some fucking signs, OK? I looked for the bathroom for over 20 minutes.”

Clearly something had to be done. Darline Luverne, Deputy Director of the museum, issued an e-mail calling an emergency meeting for all department heads. The topics would be “way-finding” and “people flow.” The e-mail said, “If we can't provide the guideposts for the public to find their way to our exhibits and amenities, then we have failed our own mission statement.”

As head of Marketing & Public Relations, Carlotta was required to go to the meeting. It was scheduled for a Tuesday at 1:30 in the Tippy Harken Conference Room. As she went out, she joked with Phoebe.

“If I'm not back in three hours, run in there and say I just got an emergency call from my husband and he's bleeding from his eyes.”

Phoebe smiled and went back to filing, but when Carlotta hadn't returned by 4:30, she began to worry. At 5:00, everyone in the office packed up their bags and put on their coats. Only Carlotta's officed was still lit with her five desk lamps.

Phoebe stood at Carlotta's door, thinking how lonely it looked in the plain, square room without Carlotta there to fill it with her loud voice.

“Should I shut off her lights?” Phoebe looked to Princepessa, who was wrapping a very long scarf around her neck.

“Leave it. She'll be back.”

“Are they still meeting, do you think?”

“Of course.”

Phoebe felt guilty all the way home on the bus for not getting Carlotta out of the meeting, although as soon as she was at home contemplating what kind of rice to have with dinner she forgot all about it.

The next morning, Carlotta came in late looking unkempt and cranky, like a horse that had been ridden in the rain and put away wet. She stood in front of Phoebe's desk and cleared her throat.

“Why didn't you come for me?”

“I thought you were kidding.”

“Do you know how late that meeting went?”

“No.”

“6:30. That's five hours.”

“What in the world did you discuss for that long?”

Carlotta explained that the group had brainstormed for approximately four hours and 40 minutes, first making a list that covered an entire wall of whiteboard, with suggestions ranging from providing each visitor with a personal Global Positioning System to use while navigating the museum to doubling the number of docents and positioning them around the museum with pins on their lapels that read, “ASK ME! I LIKE TO HELP!” Finally, after each suggestion was considered and rejected, Lars Nelson, head of Publications & Design, raised his hands.

“I'm thinking signs. I'm thinking bigger fonts. I'm thinking triple the number and double the size.”

“Yes.” Darlene rubbed her temples. “That makes sense. People need signs and words to be bigger today. They don't see signs because there are so many to see. Who can read everything? But some signs they have to read and its our job to make it easy for them.”

“And, to take the burden off visitors, we could condense the number of exhibit labels so people don't feel pressured to read too much. I mean, if you've just read three signs on your way up to the exhibit, your eyes could be tired by the time you get to the gallery. You don't want to have to read; you want to simply absorb.”

“Lars, I think you're on to something.”

And although not everyone was in agreement, they did want to go home that evening. They wanted to go home and have something to eat, watch Entertainment Tonight or Antiques Roadshow and make plans with friends to see some jazz over the weekend. So they agreed to increase the number of signs in the museum by 50, add large red dots labeled, “You Are Here,” to existing signs, use letering of at least 36 points (higher if necessary) and incorporate symbols and pictures whenever possible. They also agreed to reduce the number of exhibit labels by 20-30 percent overall, thereby taking away the risk that any patrons would feel overwhelmed by information. The plan was put on the fast track - the museum would have all new signs within one year.

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