Exhibit Design Relating to Low Vision and Blindness: What Visitors with Vision Loss Want Museums and Parks to Know about Effective Communication

Experiences at museums and parks

Several themes emerged from a discussion of participant’s best and worst museum and park visits:

Independence

For one of the participants, her best museum experience was with the original exhibition of “Washington: Symbol and City”: “Because it was an opportunity to be absolutely and completely independent. I could do all of it myself - - the wayfinding, the audio information, the reading, the examining of the objects and going on to the next thing. And it was just fun to not have anybody between me and the museum experience.” Independence in thought was also mentioned. Participants value succinct information to which they can assign meaning based on their own frame of reference.

International experiences

Several people relayed stories about visits to museums in other countries where all visitors could touch what is on display: 

Replicas

Having something tactile is considered essential. Participants noted replicas are important to a broader audience than only people with vision loss. Most participants like replicas and prefer them to real objects that must be touched only with gloved hands. People commented they couldn’t feel anything with gloves on, especially if their vision loss was recent.

Staff training

Negative museum experiences are often due to lack of staff training on program access for visitors who are blind or have low vision. A participant spoke about a museum visit where his group was reprimanded for being noisy because they were verbally describing objects to him.

Communication

An enthusiastic museum docent or staff member can make a visit memorable: “ . . . I met the guide, and he was a naturalist and he was enthusiastic about everything. He kept going behind the cabinets, opening up drawers, this is a fossil from such and such and putting things in my hands and explaining it. It was the best experience I ever had.”

Museums as sources of information

One of the interviewers asked about good information experiences in museums where you learn in detail information you didn’t know before. A participant said he wants a different type of learning from reading a book. He feels the whole purpose of a museum is experiential learning.

Emotional impact

Some museum or park experiences have emotional impact. A participant described her visit to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor where one of the veterans accompanied her on a tour: “ . . . he was describing it to me, and then he started sharing his personal experience. And so for me, that entire experience was amazing because he was talking about the ship but really describing it in a way I don't think anybody else could have described it to me. And then he took me to the marble wall that had the names carved in it. And he was like here, touch the names. These are the names.”

Websites for exhibition information

Participants described using museum websites in advance of a visit to read about the exhibits, anticipating the museum will have limited access for people with vision loss.