Canada’s oldest chocolate and candy company started by the Ganong Brothers in St. Stephen, New Brunswick is still operated by the same family. They have created a museum to promote their products and celebrate their innovations using their old factory site. This old factory site is not a newfangled exhibit facility, but I found the low-tech display techniques still worked well, along with their having added some positive design tweaks to the standard interpretive fare.
Personalization Adds Vitality
Leading the guided tour was a retired individual whose mother had worked in the factory. He was quite happy to provide reminiscences of “receiving” free candy, while he waited for his Mom to finish her shift. He was also a long-time resident of St. Stephen who personally knew the Ganong family owners. He could relate stories of delivering papers and cutting Ganong family’s lawn. This was not part of the guided script but his personalization added vitality and cemented our interest. When you are staffing an historical site it is good to remember to recruit individuals, if possible, that had first-hand experience with the site. If they can’t be there in person then make sure their presence is there with recorded stories.
The chocolate museum employed some interesting tactics when covering the “Candymaker at Work” display. It could have been a typical low budget diorama with mannequin and equipment artifacts but the designer(s) decided to make the display more accessible:
· there was no glass between visitor and display,
· there was an effective depth illusion due to a well-lit, large-scale photo backdrop, and
· an interpretive horizontal panel provided a more natural barrier rather than a rope/stanchion.
What was really well done was the audio script heard through the telephone device – it was not a generic description talking about “the candymaker at work” – it was a real worker from the past relating his spellbinding story of how he graduated from being a stable boy into becoming the master candy maker (remember from above…make sure their presence is there).
Participatory Puzzling
So many centres have some variation of a picture puzzle that you are encouraged to put together for fun but the displays often lack incentive and relevance to the site. These kinds of puzzles usually end up as child diversions at best. Well, Ganong Museum maximized the concept and hit this idea out of the park.
image courtesy Bill Reynolds
The puzzle consisted of 21 3-D pieces representing chocolates in a variety of shapes. Each shape had a unique hand-dipped design on top - just like the actual product. You race against the self-punch timer to fill your box correctly according to the template in the box. This was a paired set up so you could compete against another person simultaneously. The museum also displayed a weekly tally scoreboard with people’s names. By combining a puzzle with a competitive timed game to test your quickness in “Play the Packing Game,” they created all the ingredients for mandatory, fun participation.
Quizboard Polishing Technique
Ganong employed another design tweak on the classic quizboard testing technique that bumped up interest level and participation. In a display board close to the end of the tour, they listed 10 true or false questions with 10 corresponding numbered answers on the surface of the chocolate piece (of course) on flipboard images. A visual search of these images was necessary to find the appropriately numbered chocolate with the correct hidden answer. This added an incremental level of engagement.
Image courtesy Bill Reynolds
This “Test your chocolate IQ by uncovering 10 truths and myths about chocolate” display also had a snappy explanation hiding behind the flipboards, not just a perfunctory “T” or “F.” By employing the tour guide along with the self guided experiences, it provided some reinforcement to the concepts presented by the guide, as he could refer back to display items he had previously discussed. It was like he was tying a bow around our learning experience.
Reveal To Involve the Visitor
A second text-revealing design technique relevant to the chocolate museum was used in the cacao plant display. Each yellow cacao pod hanging on an artificial trunk was actually cut in half longitudinally allowing one piece to slide sideways with a slight push by the visitor.
Image courtesy Bill Reynolds
Inside the pod were some nifty little fun facts about cacao production (follow the white arrow in above image to see the text and my fingers that have slid the pod up to the left).
Though a text panel with images may have saved money, its low level of visitor involvement minimizes its attention effectiveness. This display was much more effective.
Give Prominence to Portraits
The successive company president timeline had a little twist that I found more interesting than normal because the “years” associated with the timeline are placed horizontally on the ledge and what takes prominence are the portraits - people respond to people not numbers (unless you are an accountant).
image courtesy Bill Reynolds
The text focused on the key business strengths each president brought (or is bringing) to the table in order for the company to improve and keep pace with change. Each president bore a nickname like “the businessman” to “the production man” to the “builder” that reflected their special skills. This consistency created a strong message and a unified thought flow about a company that has adapted over time.
Safe Cracking & Code Deciphering
A second gaming technique was utilized using a pre-existing vault door which they could have just had you open, to discover the “secrets behind the door.” Not so quick, this museum bumped the reveal up a notch, by providing the visitor with an unlocking code to use with the classic dial mechanism, along with a swing handle like a safecracker. Too bad they simply gave the visitor the code. They could have used a more imaginative way for the visitor to decipher a code that would have added another layer of fun.
image courtesy Bill Reynolds
They used this discovery device for simple marketing purposes as the hidden object behind the door was a 2-D lit display of the company’s classic chocolate bars…perhaps a bit anti-climactic. Since visitors were provided with samples of three different styles of chocolate as part of the tour - at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end - the vault game could have lent itself for a special sampling. Perhaps they could have linked the safecracking as a treat dispenser to sample chocolate money to keep with the value of delectable currency theming. What might lay hidden and invisible behind the vault door if you can crack the combination code? It is a technique with many revealing interpretive possibilities.
Even if you don’t have a safe lying around that you could put to an interpretive use and play up the “what’s behind the door” mystery technique, try to apply the concept on a smaller scale to capture the same effect.
We never did find the answer to why life is like a box of chocolates at the museum, which could have been a fun and relevant interpretive twist incorporating some perception and posted responses from the visitors. Uncovering an apt analogy for life’s diversity can be your challenge in your interpretive journey forward. Depending on your interpretive situation, maybe you can show visitors that life is like a tool box or a salt marsh or a Renaissance garden or the Andromeda galaxy or…