By Leigh Atkins,
Assistant Manager, Front of House, National Museum of Australia
The National Museum of Australia (NMA), located in Canberra, is recognised for exploring Australia’s social history, culture, and identity. Since opening in 2001, the Museum has sought to connect audiences with the rich, complex stories that shape Australia. One of the most significant ways it does this is through its onsite face-to-face interpretation which includes guided tours, facilitated gallery talks, and customer service orientated experiences delivered directly by the Museum’s Front of House team, also known as Hosts.
Over the past two decades, the Hosts have played an essential role in shaping the visitor experience. This style of professional front-line, visitor-oriented staff is a relatively unique occurrence in many modern cultural institutions throughout Australia nowadays. The Host-led tours and talks help to interpret objects, unravel complex histories, and spark conversations for over 600,000 visitors to the NMA annually.
To support the Hosts in their interpretive duties, the NMA in 2019, developed a structured but flexible Face-to-Face Interpretation Framework that now guides daily practice. This framework has become a cornerstone of the Front of House team’s interpretive training and a model for balancing factual accuracy and individual creativity with visitor engagement.
When the Museum first opened, scripted tours were the standard approach to visitor engagement. The scripts ensured that every tour delivered consistent information, avoided factual errors, and aligned closely with curatorial priorities. For a growing national institution, the scripts offered security where visitors could be confident they were receiving accurate and carefully approved content.
However, scripts came with limitations. The Hosts found themselves constrained, and unable to adapt to the interests or backgrounds of their audience. Over time, many of the Hosts felt they were reciting rather than interpreting. This rigidity often resulted in tours feeling robotic and disconnected from the visitor.
The NMA recognised that while factual accuracy was essential, scripting prevented Hosts from bringing their own interpretive strengths such as storytelling, humour, empathy, and adaptability into their tours.
Responding to this feedback, the Museum shifted to a much more relaxed model. Hosts were encouraged to design their own tours, select their own objects, and deliver content in their own style so long as it stuck to the overall theme (First Australians, Museum Highlights etc). This unlocked creativity and enthusiasm among the team and tours became more dynamic, engaging, and responsive to visitor needs. Ultimately the Hosts were able to deliver information about the Museum’s collection based on their own interests and knowledge which made it far more enjoyable for them and the visitor.
However this lack of structure did create problems as well. Without a common framework to work off, most tours varied widely in structure and information. The more experienced and naturally extroverted Hosts excelled, but others (often newer, less-experienced Hosts) struggled to create coherent narratives. This resulted in many newer staff simply watching and working off the material of other Hosts to develop their tours. This created a “broken telephone” style effect which allowed the gradual appearance of factual inaccuracies which snuck their way into tour delivery.
After steady feedback from the Host team, it was clear that a middle ground was needed – a way to preserve the Hosts’ creativity and authenticity while ensuring accuracy, consistency, and alignment with the NMA’s Content and Narrative plan.
In 2019, the Front of House team undertook a major project to design a new interpretive model for tours and talks. Working with Scott Killeen from Kelp Creative, who led extensive consultation with Hosts, curators and Front of House managers, the Face-to-Face Interpretation Framework was developed. This collaborative process ensured that the framework would be practical and embraced by the team for their tour design.
At the heart of the framework is the idea of structured flexibility. Instead of dictating exact scripts or leaving Hosts entirely on their own, the framework provides a “Tour Standard” of:
- Must-visit objects – key collection items that every standard public tour should include
- Must-mention topics – essential themes, facts, or contextual points such as providing a gallery introduction or setting the scene
- Host Choice objects: a small selection of additional objects that Hosts can choose themselves to personalise their tours
This structure ensures that visitors receive accurate and meaningful information about major objects and themes, while the Hosts maintain ownership over the shape and style of their tours.
One of the most effective components of the framework is the development of the story library. To ensure that information delivered on a tour remains factual and aligned with the NMA’s Content and Narrative plan, the Front of House team created a growing collection of concise digital information pieces (each no more than 500 words long) focused on specific objects, and themes from the Museum’s collection.
These stories are written by knowledgeable Hosts, allowing the team to share expertise and contribute directly to the Museum’s interpretive content. After drafting, each story is reviewed by another Host, followed by a manager and a curator to ensure accuracy. This process blends Host insight with curatorial authority, creating a body of knowledge that can be referred to by all Hosts creating tours.
Since its introduction, more than 200 story library entries have been developed, a lot of which were written over the Covid-19 lockdown era by Hosts staying at home. Each time a new exhibition or gallery changeover comes online, the Hosts are tasked with writing new entries for the story library. The story library has also become a professional development tool, empowering Hosts to deepen their research skills and build subject-matter expertise.
The Face-to-Face Interpretation Framework has proven to be a success. Hosts now have a clear, supportive structure that makes creating a tour less daunting and more efficient. Because essential objects and themes are identified for them, Hosts can focus on the creative aspects of tour design (storytelling, connecting ideas, and engaging visitors) without the burden of trying to determine a narrative.
The Face-to-Face Framework also provides a clear Host Development Rubric for Front of House managers to use. The Development Rubric outlines the training offered to Hosts and the corresponding expectations and standards. As Hosts gain experience, they progress through the various training modules and tracked using the Development Rubric. The Rubric helps Hosts to understand the standards and expectations for all face-to-face experiences, how progress is assessed and what development needs might be required.
Most importantly, the framework preserves what is most valuable about face-to-face interpretation: the human connection with the visitor. By avoiding the pitfalls of both overly scripted and entirely unstructured approaches, the NMA has crafted a system that celebrates the talents of its Hosts while upholding the integrity of its collections and stories.
