{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"negative_space_design__art_aesthetics","archetype_slug":"negative_space_design","domain_slug":"art_aesthetics","title":"Protected Inter-Work Gaps for Group-Exhibition Legibility","opportunity_summary":"Test whether reversibly thinning a noncritical gallery bay and protecting gaps around focal works and between clusters improves recognition, grouping, recall, attention distribution, and fatigue relative to the existing dense hang and a same-density recomposition. The proposal remains a hypothesis and does not establish problem prevalence, effectiveness, demand, or novelty.","adopter_authorizer":"The responsible curator, contingent on registrar or lender compliance, preparator and conservation approval, access review, and any required artist or lender authorization.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"Better recognition, interpretation, recall, and access could matter to visitors, artists, and curators, but the candidate provides no evidence of the problem's prevalence, severity, or realized improvement."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":2,"rationale":"Affected visitors, artists, lenders, and museum staff are identifiable, but the packet contains no expressed demand, adoption request, complaint data, or evidence that institutions prioritize this intervention."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"Protected gaps could reduce simultaneous competition beyond ordinary dense-hang adjustments, but the same-density recomposition rival may achieve similar gains, and the proposed pilot confounds thinning with spacing."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":2,"rationale":"The mechanism composition is clearly articulated, but prior art is unsearched and the packet does not establish differentiation from existing exhibition-spacing, hierarchy, or visitor-legibility practices."},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"A photographed, reversible mock-hang in one noncritical bay uses ordinary exhibition-design and visitor-evaluation capabilities, although handling, conservation, access, and lender constraints must be satisfied."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":3,"rationale":"The curator and required approval roles are explicitly identified, but authority is distributed and actual artist, lender, contractual, representation, conservation, and access permissions are not established."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":3,"rationale":"The packet provides baseline, rival, outcomes, falsifiers, exclusions, and rollback rules, but lacks operational instruments, sampling rules, accessibility strata, effect thresholds, and a design separating omission from spacing."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"The mock-hang is reversible, preserves essential labels and access supports, documents the original state, excludes permanent removal, and specifies restoration triggers; residual interpretive and representation harms still require review."},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"The method could be repeated across gallery bays using common staff roles, but each exhibition requires work-specific judgments about adjacency, representation, contracts, conservation, access, and intended density."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Design, approve, construct, document, and evaluate a reversible one-bay comparison using small visitor samples and preregistered interpretation, behavior, fatigue, access, and inclusion measures.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["An existing noncritical gallery bay and ordinary museum staff are available.","No specialized construction, major conservation treatment, or lender renegotiation is required.","The evaluation uses modest samples and lightweight instruments rather than a powered multisite study.","Labor, coordination, visitor recruitment, analysis, and restoration are included."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Prepare an exhibition-scale implementation plan, obtain relevant permissions, redesign spacing and sequencing, update handling and installation plans, conduct access and conservation review, and establish measurement and rollback procedures.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Deployment covers one institution and one substantial group exhibition.","Existing gallery infrastructure, lighting systems, and collections-management systems remain usable.","Costs include curatorial, registration, preparation, conservation, access, legal or contractual coordination, and evaluation labor.","No major architectural renovation or prolonged gallery closure is needed."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Execute and monitor an approved exhibition-scale rehang, including artwork handling, installation, interpretive adjustments, visitor evaluation, stakeholder coordination, and potential restoration of the original arrangement.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The launch affects one exhibition rather than an institution-wide portfolio.","Artwork moves require standard professional handling but no exceptional transport or insurance changes.","Essential labels, accessibility supports, seating, and safe circulation are retained.","The band includes evaluation and contingency work but not foregone revenue or the value of reduced artist visibility."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Apply the method across several group exhibitions per year, including dependency review, permissions, exhibition-design labor, installation adjustments, access review, visitor measurement, and rotations or restorations.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["A single institution uses the approach selectively rather than as a mandatory rule for every exhibition.","Existing staff and gallery infrastructure provide most capabilities.","Each exhibition requires renewed work-specific and stakeholder review.","No recurring major construction or new permanent research unit is included."]}},"research_burden":"MODERATE","earliest_credible_horizon":"3_TO_12_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"The candidate specifies observable crowding indicators and a diagnosis falsifier based on existing-hang recognition, grouping, recall, and viewing effort, although prevalence remains unmeasured."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The responsible curator is identified as the primary authorizer, with explicit registrar or lender, preparation, conservation, access, artist, and contractual dependencies."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The candidate claims that protected gaps and selective thinning improve specified visitor outcomes relative to both the existing dense hang and a same-density recomposition rival; the composite manipulation is testable despite limited component attribution."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A reversible mock-hang in one noncritical bay, with preserved essential supports, documented baseline, small visitor samples, comparisons, halt criteria, and restoration, is explicitly bounded."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The packet defines safeguards and an approval pathway but does not establish that artist, lender, contractual, representation, conservation, access, or handling constraints permit the proposed mock-hang at a real site."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The one-bay evidence step and prospective exhibition-scale deployment have sufficiently bounded labor, coordination, handling, compliance, and evaluation scopes for broad resource-equivalent bands, although institution-specific costs remain uncertain."}},"blocking_evidence":["Site-specific confirmation that a suitable dense-hang bay exhibits the diagnosed recognition, grouping, recall, or fatigue problem under baseline conditions.","Written confirmation that the mock-hang is permissible under artist, lender, contractual, conservation, preparation, access, representation, and safety constraints.","Preregistered outcome definitions, accessibility strata, sampling and exclusion rules, meaningful-effect thresholds, and restoration criteria.","A comparison design capable of separating thinning, protected spacing, their combination, and same-density recomposition where feasible.","Evidence that visitors do not predominantly interpret the gaps as error, censorship, damage, unavailability, exclusion, or unfinished installation."],"next_evidence_step":"With all required approvals, run a reversible one-bay factorial mockup comparing the photographed baseline, same-density recomposition, thinning without protected gaps, protected spacing without thinning where feasible, and the composite intervention; preregister decision thresholds and falsify the proposal if baseline performance is already adequate or the composite yields no meaningful improvement, or worsens access, orientation, inclusion, or interpretation.","research_questions":["Do visitors under the existing hang actually misidentify focal works or group boundaries, forget intended relationships, fragment attention, or report excessive effort?","Does protected spacing add measurable benefit beyond same-density changes in ordering, lighting, color, alignment, or focal hierarchy?","What independent effects arise from thinning artwork count, increasing spacing, and combining both changes?","How do effects vary across visual, cognitive, sensory, mobility, language, and cultural access needs without using those groups as interchangeable categories?","When do visitors, artists, or communities interpret gaps as exclusion, censorship, damage, unavailability, or weakened representation?","Which exhibition types depend on density or close adjacency strongly enough that the intervention would undermine their historical, political, aesthetic, or curatorial thesis?","What approval, handling, staffing, rotation, and evaluation burden would make repeated institutional use acceptable?","What relevant exhibition-density, museum-visitor, salon-hang, and perceptual-spacing prior art already addresses the proposed mechanism and comparisons?"],"recommendation":"PARTNERED_RESEARCH","uncertainty_constraints":["Closed-book assessment provides no external evidence of problem prevalence, stakeholder demand, realized effects, market size, or novelty.","Prior art is explicitly unsearched, so distinctiveness cannot be established.","The proposal changes artwork count and spacing together unless additional conditions are introduced.","Outcome instruments, sample size, analysis rules, accessibility strata, and decision thresholds are unspecified.","Actual permissions and constraints depend on the selected exhibition, works, artists, lenders, contracts, and institution.","Cost bands are resource-equivalent planning ranges, not observed or quoted costs.","Reduced display or rotation may redistribute artist visibility and representation in ways visitor legibility measures alone cannot resolve.","Novelty effects and visitor-selection bias could distort a small mock-hang study."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"No conclusion is made about novelty, prior-art prevalence, existing museum practice, market adoption, or comparative effectiveness. The sealed packet only establishes an internally specified hypothesis, rival, falsifiers, authority pathway, safeguards, and reversible evidence concept; external research is required before asserting distinctiveness or established benefit."}