For my investigation of how signage affects guest behavior, I chose the whiteboard stop-motion activity. Over approximately a two hour period, I was able to observe guest behavior for three different signages.
Methods and Signage
I used the small chalk signs for each iteration. The large white sign remained posted above the activity for the duration. Each chalk sign was posted for at least 30 minutes, on the left side of the larger vertical whiteboard.
The first sign read simply, "Create a new character" in all capitals, written in orange chalk.
The second iteration was two signs. The first read, "Create a new scene," and the second, just to its right, read "Make it come to life!" Both were similarly in all-caps and written in orange.
The iteration kept the second sign, but replaced "Create a new scene" with "Imagine a new story."
The first two iterations were meant to potentially emphasize a different element of an animation, while the third was meant to be slightly more open-ended, while encouraging guests to invest more time to create a story.
Data and Observations
Sign 1 : "Create a new character"
This sign setup was out from 10:40 until 11:30, and saw 6 different groups of guests. Their composition and behavior are as follows:
- 1st guests: A father and his ~8 y/o daughter. The sign was somewhat in the way of the board, so they flipped it face down on the table, then back up again a couple of minutes later. Though this was an error on my part, it definitely means they read it. The daughter made a basic stick figure with large head in profile, tried changing it a couple of times, then they saw some family and left after less than 5 minutes.
- 2nd guest: ~7-8 y/o boy. I couldn't tell if he read the sign or not. He made a basic stick figure, then was briefly joined by his mother and sister, who then left. He then remade another stick figure, tried to make it "jump" in his animation, then gave up after a few minutes and left.
- (Up to this point the whiteboard animation video was not on. After guest #2 it was turned on)
- 3rd guest: ~7-8 y/o boy and his mother. There was no apparent engagement with the sign. The boy drew two vague objects on a small whiteboard, and his mother moved the board itself slightly between shots to create apparent movement. Neither of them changed the initial drawing itself. They stayed between 5 and 10 minutes.
- 4th guest: ~10 y/o girl. She drew a large smiling face with a speech bubble saying, "HI!" then left. No animation created.
- 5th guest: ~5-6 y/o girl with her mother. The mother pivoted the ipad to point down and to the right at a small whiteboard on the table. She operated the tablet, taking periodic pictures while her daughter drew a house and colored it in pink. No apparent engagement with the sign.
-6th guest: ~11 y/o girl. She was helped at first getting started by a nearby man, not her father. She spent at least an hour on an animation called "Grumpy Cat." About halfway through her effort, I switched to the second setting, with two signs reading "Create a new scene," and "Make it come to life!"
Sign(s) 2 : "Create a new scene," and "Make it come to life!"
This setup was out from 1:30 til 12:15. Most of this time was dominated by the 6th guest from the first setup. Guests after her were as follows:
- 1st guest: ~7 y/o boy, alone. He drew a cityscape with stars above buildings, but didn't get the opportunity to animate since the Grumpy Cat girl was using the ipad.
- 2nd guests: two sisters, ages ~ 6 and 9. They drew two rainclouds with faces, each colored differently, depicted raining on the ground below. They drew 2 or 3 iterations of the rainclouds, but only recorded a couple of frames with the camera once they settled on their design.
- 3rd guests: ~9 y/o girl and her mother. The girl drew, "1 2 3 ABC Hi" on a small whiteboard and took a picture as her mother stood aside. No animation was made and there was no apparent engagement with the signs.
Sign(s) 3 : "Imagine a new story," and "Make it come to life!"
This was meant to be a more open ended challenge to guests, with an emphasis on creating a narrative. It was up from about 12:15 til 1pm.
- 1st guest: Father of the last girl in setup 2. He made a quick animation of a cat's face moving, which took him about 5 minutes, then he left with his family. He definitely read the sign, as he saw me switch it in.
- 2nd guest: A ~10 y/o girl, alone, only stayed for about 30 seconds and left without making anything.
- 3rd guest: 4-5 y/o girl with her mother, helped by Juliana. They almost certainly didn't read the sign (I doubt the girl could read yet, and I didn't see her mother read the sign to her). They drew a picture of some flowers and little rhyme, then left without making any animation.
Analysis/Discussion
The main takeaway from my observations was that guests mostly didn't engage with the signs, at least not in any outward way that I could tell. Most of them didn't stay long enough to make an animation lasting longer than a couple frames, with the exception of Grumpy Cat girl, who stayed for an hour. Looking at the creations of my guests, I could fudge it somewhat and say that guests made more "characters" in the first iterations and more "scene-like" drawings in the second, but I think that would be a stretch. For the most part, guests made what they wanted to, as far as I could tell.
Challenges
One of the greatest limitations in drawing conclusions from the different signs was the diversity and number of guests who engaged. Even on a busy holiday like today, I was only able to observe a total of ~13 guest groups, which were mostly concentrated in the time of my first setup. This isn't a large enough sample to draw any quantitative conclusions about their behavior, and it's barely enough of a sample in the best of circumstances to draw qualitative conclusions. If I were to do this study again, I would explicitly record time spent, the length of the animation made, and I would try to get a much larger sample of guests for each sign iteration. I would probably also change what I wrote on the signs to change more between each one.
-Sam S.
If you were to do this again, what would your second round of signage say differently and why?
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