We examine the process of designing an exhibit to communicate scientific findings from a complex dataset and unfamiliar domain to the public in a science museum. Our exhibit sought to communicate new lessons based on scientific findings from the domain of metagenomics. This multi-user exhibit had three goals: (1) to inform the public about microbial communities and their daily cycles; (2) to link microbes' activity to the concept of gene expression; (3) and to highlight scientists' use of gene expression data to understand the role of microbes. To address these three goals, we derived visualization designs with three corresponding stories, each corresponding to a goal. We present three successive rounds of design and evaluation of our attempts to convey these goals. We could successfully present one story but had limited success with our second and third goals. This work presents a detailed account of an attempt to explain tightly coupled relationships through storytelling and animation in a multi-user, informal learning environment to a public with varying prior knowledge on the domain and identify lessons for future design.

This study describes a detailed analysis of museum visitors' decoding process as they used a visualization designed to support exploration of a large, complex dataset. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that it took, on average, 43 seconds for visitors to decode enough of the visualization to see patterns and relationships in the underlying data represented, and 54 seconds to arrive at their first correct data interpretation. Furthermore, visitors decoded throughout and not only upon initial use of the visualization. The study analyzed think-aloud data to identify issues visitors had mapping the visual representations to their intended referents, examine why they occurred, and consider if and how these decoding issues were resolved. The paper also describes how multiple visual encodings both helped and hindered decoding and concludes with implications on the design and adaptation of visualizations for informal science learning venues.

In the past decades the field of bioimaging has experienced an explosion of technologies that have revolutionized the study of the microscopic world. Through iterative prototyping and evaluation with museum visitors, we shed light on how these technologies, specifically image recognition techniques, can be incorporated into an interactive museum exhibit to help the visiting public gain insights and make sense of dynamic, live specimens as they use a research-grade microscope. Our work indicates that the technology needs to be carefully positioned as an aid to observation rather than an infallible source of expertise in order to support and sustain visitors' explorations. This paper contributes to our understanding of design considerations in integrating emerging imaging technologies and techniques into museum exhibits to enrich visitors' interactive learning experiences.

We share our challenges and lessons learned in designing our exhibit prototype that encourages museum visitors to learn about marine animal behaviors through interactive visualization and data exploration. Our intent is to have visitors draw comparisons between animal behaviors, similarly to how scientists would, to make insights and discoveries. In our efforts, we have designed a set of visual encodings around the Tagging of Pelagic Predator (TOPP) data set to create the appropriate abstractions of this rich and complex field data. We have incorporated Multiple External Representations (MERs) and tangible user interfaces (TUIs) to provide a complementary representation of the data and promote self-learning. Through the formative evaluation, we can identify a few strengths and weaknesses of our prototype design. Our evaluation results suggest that we are progressing in the right direction - we observed the public making some comparisons and inferences - but still require further design iterations to improve our visualization exhibit.

We describe a study comparing the behavior of museum visitors at an interactive exhibit that used physical versus virtual objects to explore a large scientific dataset. The exhibit visualized the distribution of phytoplankton in the world's oceans on a multi-touch table. In one version, visitors used physical rings to look at the type and proportion of phytoplankton in different areas of the oceans, and in the other version they used virtual rings. The findings suggest that the physical rings better afforded touching and manipulations, which were prerequisites to further exploration, and attracted more groups, thereby providing opportunities for people to talk and share. However, the comparison did not detect any measurable differences in the thoroughness of visitors' interactions, the questions they asked, or on-topic talk with others at the exhibit. These results should help museum professionals and interaction designers better weigh the costs and benefits of tangible user interfaces.

Interactive visualizations can allow science museum visitors to explore new worlds by seeing and interacting with scientific data. However, designing interactive visualizations for informal learning environments, such as museums, presents several challenges. First, visualizations must engage visitors on a personal level. Second, visitors often lack the background to interpret visualizations of scientific data. Third, visitors have very limited time at individual exhibits in museums. This paper examines these design considerations through the iterative development and evaluation of an interactive exhibit as a visualization tool that gives museumgoers access to scientific data generated and used by researchers. The exhibit prototype, Living Liquid, encourages visitors to ask and answer their own questions while exploring the time-varying global distribution of simulated marine microbes using a touchscreen interface. Iterative development proceeded through three rounds of formative evaluations using think-aloud protocols and interviews, each round informing a key visualization design decision: (1) what to visualize to initiate inquiry, (2) how to link data at the microscopic scale to global patterns, and (3) how to include additional data that allows visitors to pursue their own questions. Data from visitor evaluations suggests that, when designing visualizations for public audiences, one should (1) avoid distracting visitors from data that they should explore, (2) incorporate background information into the visualization, (3) favor understandability over scientific accuracy, and (4) layer data accessibility to structure inquiry. Lessons learned from this case study add to our growing understanding of how to use visualizations to actively engage learners with scientific data.