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Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum creates "excellent audience experiences" through a process of prototyping and evaluation. We try to find good projects to replicate or adapt and good partners to reduce the effort, achieve higher quality, or multiply the impact of exhibits, shows, and programs. Adler recently created the exhibit Light! Spectra! Action! based on exhibits about light originally developed by the Exploratorium. Exhibit labels and captions appropriate to astronomy were written and extensively revised based on prototyping with test audiences (the exhibit is designed for ages 8 - adult). Demonstrations and photographs (some based on previous activities) about color, light, and spectra are incorporated in the exhibit. Photographs were enthusiastically provided by David Malin/Anglo Australian Observatory, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, The Space Telescope Science Institute, Roger Ressmeyer, and Kitt Peak National Observatory. The exhibit's impact is being enhanced by a NASA Idea Grant which supported some of the original construction and enables Kitt Peak to replicate parts of the exhibit for their Visitor Center.
