By Stephanie Weaver

On Sunday, October 25 WMA held a pre-conference workshop at San Diego's Museum of Photographic Arts called "Getting Comfortable with Visitor Comfort." The goal of the workshop was to help participants and the museum assess how the museum's experience met visitors' comfort needs, and therefore was an experience they might want to repeat. The facilitators (in alpha order) were Paul Gabriel, Vivian Haga, Beth Katz, Steve Tokar, and myself. We were extremely fortunate to have Kenshi Westover with us, an amazing videographer and editor, as well as Joaquin Ortiz from the museum staff. During the workshop they shot a total of 6 hours of video, which Kenshi is editing down into segments.

This first segment is about entrances and exits. The workshop participants were each given cards with roles to play, and sent out into the museum with very little priming to see how the museum experience worked for them in this role. Roles varied from temporary physical conditions, like pregnancy, to learning differences like dyslexia.

In the video, you'll see the participants identified by name and then the role they were playing.