Front-end Evaluation of Life’s New Fronteirs

This report presents the findings from a front-end evaluation for an exhibition being developed by The Tech Museum of Innovation about genetics, health, and technology. Front-end evaluation is conducted to help planners understand visitors’ thoughts and reactions to key themes, ideas, concepts, and activities being developed for an exhibition. Since front-end evaluation highlights both common ground and gaps between visitors and the exhibition’s concept, the evaluation findings may inform the team’s decisions as exhibition development progresses. The evaluation objectives were to: (1) Determine how visitors think genes relate to human health and disease; (2) Determine how visitors personally connect to genetically related diseases; (3)Determine how visitors respond to case studies that involve diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of genetic diseases; (4) Find out which exhibition topics interest potential visitors.