Interpretive planning is an initial step in the planning and design process for informal learning-based institutions like museums, zoos, science centers, nature centers, botanical gardens, heritage sites, parks and other cultural facilities where interpretation is used to communicate messages, stories, information and experiences.
It is a decision-making process that blends management needs and resource considerations with visitor needs and desires to determine the most effective way to communicate a message to a targeted audience.
The communication goals of interpretation at mission-based institutions are based on achieving previously specified outcomes.
[4] An interpretive plan establishes these specific goals for an institution's market(s) and builds a structured vision of how to achieve them by communicating to an audience through appropriate and meaningful experiences.
[5] An interpretive plan establishes the communication process, through which meanings and relationships of the cultural and natural world, past and present, are revealed to a visitor through experiences with objects, artifacts, landscapes, sites, exhibits and people.