The next worst sign – a triage strategy for when there is no strategy

Interpretation & Wayfinding at Port Arthur Historic Site
David Perkins
Interpretation & Experience Manager
Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority

Often programmes of work are dictated by a series of factors – allocated budgets, grants, strategic plans, partnerships, exhibition schedules and changeovers etc etc. But what would you do if all of those deciding factors were missing? What would you do if you didn’t have a plan?

That was my situation when I started in my current role. My organisation had been through a period of flux at the executive level, we were between CEOs, and the previous interpretation manager had left 18 months prior. It was a prolonged period of change and the interpretation across our sites was looking a little worse for wear. 

The first steps for me and my ‘team’ (a single project officer and myself) were to attain a good idea of the current state of all that was within our sphere of influence. What was working? What was working but in need of updating? and what was irreparably broken? We aligned two different projects to help with this scoping – a week-long student project with tourism students and a Current State Visitor Journey Map.

Student Insights

The students were divvied into groups and asked to critically assess different parts of the visitor experience. At the end of the week they reported back their findings to myself and a handful of managers and executives. Seeing our visitor experience through the eyes of a group of motivated students was both brutal and enlightening. The main gallery was really failing due to a few flawed interactives and navigating the site was confusing and difficult. Following that presentation we started the Wayfinding Project and the Restoration of The Port Arthur Scale Model – both projects were geared towards improving visitors spatial understanding and navigation of the site.

Mapping the visitor journey

The students’ reports were a good start, the next step was initiating a project to map the current state of the visitor journey. Working with Meld Studios we pulled together research, surveys, observations and interviews to illustrate all the phases visitors move through when visiting our site, their interaction points, the pain points, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The map looked beyond just interpretation to the entire visitor experience and from it we generated a jobs list – some were small quick wins, and some were more complex and long term.

The next worst sign

While these various big projects were spinning up, we weren’t sitting on our hands. We worked with AV contractors to triage the various soundscapes and videos across the site – some were too old to save (like the 13 channel/13 amplifier choir experience for example), and some were such integral experiences they were worth investing in (the timed bell chimes in the clock tower, the touchscreen interactives in the Separate Prison).

Alongside improving the AV, we looked at all the existing signage, displays, exhibitions etc. and did a sweeping refresh of anything that was worn, tired and out of date. We were triaging the long list of jobs based on the impact for the visitor – will the experience be improved with this? Will it be worse without it? How will this museum/room/site be positively or negatively impacted with or without this? (Alongside the more practical guidelines of – how much would it cost to replace or change this? How long will it take? Is this a priority area?)

Our shorthand for this overall approach became “what’s the next worst sign?” It was a way of saying, what can we do next that will most improve the visitor experience? As a way to identify and prioritise tasks across an enormous site (with the limitations of a small team and a bit of catch up to do) the next worst sign was a great approach. It raised the level of the visitor experience by identifying and dealing with the most critical jobs.

That was years ago. Now, in July 2025 we find ourselves in a much more grounded place. We have a new director, a stable leadership team and a larger interpretation team. And we have created Interpretation Policy and Interpretation Strategy that will guide our decisions and planning for the next five to ten years.