The meeting today with Jenni went really well. Here are the highlights:
The biggest takeaway is that she spoke of shifting the use of the space from something like a "dig site" and a "lab site" with exhibits grouped into those two categories, and visitors moving with evidence between the two. She noted that there are many exhibits that already do that. The new idea is that there would be "evidence pathways" - paths that visitors could take from exhibit to exhibit that would lead them through a process or story. These pathways would not be forced or anything, but would instead be different possible ways of exploring the museum.
She thinks that we could use or question stations as starting points, launching points, for these evidence pathways. Perhaps a visitor asks a question at the station - just as our scenario described - but in addition to encouraging this questioning behavior, the station directs visitors towards possible pathways. This could be something as simple as footsteps on the ground, but I think a technology solution would be appropriate.
Anyway, this, I think is really good. We have our basic scenario down: a question station. And this notion of evidence pathways provides the context for embedding our project within the entire museum space and experience.
We can brainstorm a little more on this, and then figure out how to present it.
Two final thoughts: maybe the RFID tags can support these pathways. The tags record the order with which visitors interact exhibits, and their pathways are recorded. These could then be connected to their questions at the booth... Secondly, I think it might be fun to present this through a simple animation... I'm playing around with a program that might work to do that on now.