Unfortunately, there were not many visitors to the NCAA Hall of Champions on the day I went. In total I observed only a handful of people interacting with the displays and exhibits. By far the most popular attractions were the virtual reality simulators for baseball and basketball. Young children and older parents seemed to equally enjoy testing their abilities on these machines.
The informational exhibits on the first floor were not nearly as popular as the interactive displays on the second floor. Though large in size and with very colorful graphics and pictures, people gave the displays only cursory attention. The several displays detailed standout athletes and teams from different sports. Visitors could then access additional information via multimedia computer screens with a mouse and buttons below. The multimedia computers had a great deal of categories and information for each sport and were overall very user-friendly.
The first floor exhibits were designed with a smart strategy of using large colorful displays to draw viewers to the displays and then keep them with the multimedia computers. The few visitors I saw would spend additional time perusing the information and trivia games on the computers before continuing on to the next exhibit. The drawback I saw with the multimedia displays was a lack of coherent learning objectives. There was far too much informaiton contained in each computer and not enough direction. What the visitor viewed was up to the visitor. While the displays meant each user could shape their own unique experience, it prevented the NCAA from communicating a consistent message. The design seemed to support only a singular goal of generally increasing awareness and appreciation for NCAA athletes and sports.
Were I to make a recommendation for the first floor exhibits of the NCAA Hall of Champions, it would be to cut the amount of information available and streamline the user experience. Decide what is important and then convey that through engaging multimedia. Then challenge the viewer to a trivia quiz to enforce the knowledge. The quizzes seemed to be a very popular component of the multimedia displays and with a uniform experience visitors might become competitive with their family and friends to receive high scores. In turn, a consistent message would be further reinforced.