Three Drops Evaluation

General Description:

A formative evaluation was conducted on Three Drops, an Immersive Digital Interactive (IDI), that allows visitors to interact with simulations of water at different size scales where different physical forces dominate. This evaluation revisits the exhibit after changes were made to address issues identified in the first series of formatives.

Major Findings:

• Overall, Three Drops was easy to use and visitors reported enjoying using the exhibit.
• However, the nanoscale portion of the IDI was the least likely used (66%) and seemed the most difficult to figure out.
• Only about half of the visitors saw all three parts of the exhibit. Consequently, only they had an opportunity to compare the macro, micro and nanoscale and induce that different forces dominate at different size scales.
• Despite having a video or a static label that articulated the main message of the piece, a minority of visitors (33%) reported thinking that Three Drops was about how the very small behaves and even fewer thought its main message was about the different forces at play at different size scales. Some people simply did not look at the video or label. Of the other 65%, some of these visitors were more interested in finding out what to do and not what is the exhibit about from the video or label.

Type of product(s) studied:

Exhibit

Method(s) of data collection:

interviews
observations

Documents:

three_drops.pdf

Author(s):

Joyce Ma

Associated product(s):

Three Drops

Three Drops is a full body immersive simulation that allows visitors to interact with water at three size scales using their shadows. At each scale, different physical forces can be observed. At the macro (human) scale, where gravity is the noticeable force, visitors are showered with water drops from a simulated shower. At the microscale--one thousand times smaller--where surface tension becomes more apparent, visitors play with a beach-ball sized water drop. At the nanoscale--one billion times smaller and time slowed by a factor of one trillion--where electromagnetic forces can be observed, visitors play with simulated water molecules. This simulation gives visitors an opportunity to interact with water at different scales and thereby discover how different forces can be observed at different scales.

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