Exhibit Design Relating to Low Vision and Blindness Summary Report

Historically, museums have displayed their collections for the visiting public primarily through visual means. Most often the objects are located behind glass or other barriers; and if not, clearly the message is to “look and not touch”. While audio tours have been a recent addition to the museum scene, the absence of descriptive information about the objects or exhibits themselves have proved inaccessible to for persons with visual impairments and do not provide an equivalent experience that is available to the sighted public.

This project was conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Architecture and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) and the National Park Service. The purpose of the project was to convene museum and site exhibit stakeholders, including government and private sector museum staff, Federal and State accessibility specialists, exhibit designers, consumers with vision impairments, and related stakeholders in a workshop to consider issues in exhibit design and operation for people with low vision and blindness.

The project involved the commission of four white papers by experts who had conducted research or projects in subjects related to exhibit or interpretive media design for persons with low vision or who are blind. The four issues identified for white papers were in the areas of:

1. Effective Communication: What Visitors with Vision Loss Want Museums and Parks to Know about Effective Communication (Beth Ziebarth, Smithsonian Institution);
2. Tactile Mapping and Orientation: Tactile Mapping for Cultural and Entertainment Venues (Steve Landau, Touch Graphics);
3. Tactile Models with Audio Description: Research on Effective Use of Tactile Exhibits with Touch Activated Audio Description for the Blind and Low Vision Audience (Rebecca Fuller and Bill Watkins, RAF Models); and
4. Current Media Technology: Current Media Technology, Appropriate Application of Technology, Future Research Needs (Larry Goldberg, National Center for Accessible Media).

A one-day workshop was conducted in August 2009 in conjunction with the Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD) national conference. The experts prepared a 10-14-page white paper that was distributed to attendees prior to the workshop. The workshop consisted of fifty-two attendees representing the targeted museum and site exhibit stakeholders. The workshop consisted of presentations by each white paper author followed by questions, reactions, and recommendations from the audience. In addition to the four white papers, a fifth presentation by Michele Hartley, National Park Service Harpers Ferry Center provided lessons learned from evolving NPS interpretive media accessibility projects. Lastly, participants engaged in small group discussions on needs for future research and next steps for increasing access to the interpretive venues such as museums, zoos, aquariums, and other exhibit areas.

In November 2010, the National Center on Accessibility also conducted a three-day focus group on universally designed wayside exhibits at the Grand Canyon National Park. The focus group consisted of six individuals with vision impairments, whose task was to explore ways to communicate using tactile elements and audio to create additional opportunities for interpretation with the purpose of helping the park, and the Park Service as a whole, to better understand how to communicate resources in park wayside exhibits to people with visual impairments. This three day process involved not only consumers with visual impairments, but also members of the park’s exhibit planning, cultural resources compliance staff, interpretive staff and Diversity Committee staff, representatives of the wayside design contractor, fabricator, contracted park historians, and Harpers Ferry Center of the National Park Service.

Several global issues emerged from both the work presented in the papers, the discussions and recommendations within the workshop and from the wayside focus group experience.

1. Tactile opportunities are important to gain insight into the interpretive experience. The opportunity to touch artifacts or replicas, explore maps for orientation and models assist in gaining a complete picture of the interpretive story.

2. Input from user groups as exhibits/interpretive media as developed is critical. All the work conducted by the authors involved the use of focus groups, beta testers or other form of input from end users with visual impairments. This practice was followed in the conduct of the workshop as ten persons with visual impairments were recruited representing both low vision and blindness, congenital and adventitious onset, and varying ages and genders.

3. Visitors want independence when visiting museums and other venues. Having adequate information in the exhibits and other interpretive displays provides the visitor with vision loss more independence to explore and enjoy the interpretive opportunities. More content in the exhibits rather than for way finding is desired if both cannot be adequately provided. Visitors with visual impairments require a great deal more assistance with orientation and way finding than is typically offered or available. The exception would be if way finding were integral to the exhibit or interpretive experience. In the example of the Grand Canyon, orientation information was considered critical to the focus group members as poor orientation gets in the way of interpretive opportunities.

4. Lack of staff training was cited as a major problem. All staff and volunteers should receive training on the use and care of assistive equipment, accommodations (e.g., allowing tactile exploration of artifacts); availability of accessibility elements with the venue; and disability etiquette to name a few issues.

5. Availability of accessible features is crucial. If accessible features in exhibits are not available because needed staff is not available to provide the element or the feature is broken or degraded, then the visitor with a disability is unable to benefit from the exhibit.

6. Shared resources among cultural institutions should be explored for the mutual benefit of each entity. Many individuals pondered the feasibility of collective purchases of assistive equipment; allowing accessibility solutions to travel with traveling exhibits rather than each venue reinventing the wheel or not having the capacity to provide those solutions; or pooled resources for service provision such as audio description or sign language interpreters.

7. Integration of universal design into exhibit design approaches should be utilized to the greatest extent possible in order to mitigate the accessibility needs of cultural institutions.