• HOME
  • SERVICES
  • VIZ GALLERY
  • COLLABORATORS
  • AHOY!
  • SOUVENIRS
    • NICK VS PPT BLOG
    • DATA DESIGN DOWNLOADS
    • SPOTLIGHT SUPER FANS!
    • POWERPOINT FOR ALL!
    • CHART 💗 STICKERS!
    • OVERALL EXPERIENCE RATING
  • More
    • HOME
    • SERVICES
    • VIZ GALLERY
    • COLLABORATORS
    • AHOY!
    • SOUVENIRS
      • NICK VS PPT BLOG
      • DATA DESIGN DOWNLOADS
      • SPOTLIGHT SUPER FANS!
      • POWERPOINT FOR ALL!
      • CHART 💗 STICKERS!
      • OVERALL EXPERIENCE RATING
  • HOME
  • SERVICES
  • VIZ GALLERY
  • COLLABORATORS
  • AHOY!
  • SOUVENIRS
    • NICK VS PPT BLOG
    • DATA DESIGN DOWNLOADS
    • SPOTLIGHT SUPER FANS!
    • POWERPOINT FOR ALL!
    • CHART 💗 STICKERS!
    • OVERALL EXPERIENCE RATING

Overall Experience Rating

What could be better than excellent?

I've been an evaluator in visitor-serving organizations for over a decade and nothing has made me more excited than this simple survey question. Yep, I'm a nerd 🤓.  We presented about OER at the 2017 Visitor Studies Association conference to a full room. Afterward someone came up and said, "Wow, that was great. It's such a simple thing, but it packs a huge punch!" I couldn't agree more and that's why I've evangelized the use of OER every since. #oerevangelist ⭐ 


If you care about improving the visitor experience in your museum, you'll find a way to make OER part of your audience research repertoire! 


The Overall Experience Rating (OER) was first developed by researchers at the Smithsonian Office of Audience Research (SOAR) and gives museums a way to measure visitor experience in a way that's different from typical quality ratings. By giving visitors a response option above "excellent" we get a more accurate picture of those who had an experience which truly exceeded their expectations.


Browse these outstanding resources to get started.

Article in Curator: the Museum Journal

What's OER and why is it unique?

How to analyze OER in Excel

How to visualize OER for reporting

Podcast Summary

Learn more about OER in this fun podcast style summary of the Curator article, "Overall Experience Rating - Measuring Visitor Response in Museums"

Read the article in Curator

Download PDF

Copyright © 2020-2025

ahoy@spotlightimpact.com

Make your data shine with everyday software like PowerPoint.


  • CHART 💗 STICKERS!

Powered by

This website uses cookies.

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

Accept