Small Steps to Museum Accessibility: Part 1
Part 1: Before Visitors Arrive
This is part of a series addressing small steps museums can take to make their space more accessible. This post focuses on tools for before visitors arrive at the museum. Other topics are covered at the links below:
Accessibility is a huge topic and includes all kinds of people, not just those who are typically included in ADA guidelines. If you have thoughts or ideas, you would like to add feel free to reach out to me or comment.
Often accessibility is presented as something that can only be achieved with big updates and projects. Those projects are great and often necessary (if people can’t physically get into your building or use the bathroom, it is hard to add other accommodations). However, often you are stuck in a building that you can’t change, or you don’t have the resources to do a huge renovation now, but you want to make your museum more accessible now. Accessibility is an ongoing process that is not an all or nothing proposition, so from this guide take what is useful and leave what is not. This guide is designed to provide suggestions of what can be added/changed with small updates to what you currently have and is not addressing exhibit elements or content.
I would also always encourage a museum to involve their local disabled community to listen to their needs and evaluate programs. The VSA Network is a great resource and low-cost to join. They host the LEAD® Conference every year.
Before Visitors Arrive
Web presence is a huge topic to cover, but your website or social media is the first impression of your museum. It is the place to let possible visitors know that they are welcome at your museum and will find it accessible to them.
Website accessibility: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the most comprehensive guidelines for web accessibility. If you have a company that handles your website there is a good chance they are already addressing these requirements, but always check.
List available accommodations on your website: If you have resources but no one knows about them, it doesn’t matter. The majority of visitors won’t risk a visit to your museum if they aren’t sure you can accommodate their needs, so list things even if you think they should be obvious that you provide them, and you should be transparent about what your museum does and does not offer. Possible information includes:
Are there handicap parking spaces?
Which entrance(s) are accessible?
Is the museum appropriate for all age groups?
Are your exhibits multilingual? Or do you have staff who speak multiple languages?
Do you have low-sensory times/days/routes?
Are all your bathrooms accessible?
Are there areas that are not accessible to everyone? (visitors will want to know ahead of time)
Is there a place to buy food or eat food that you have brought with you?
Do you have water fountains?
Are sensory kits available?
Allow visitors to request accommodation when reserving tickets: Some visitors are more comfortable making requests than others, so adding a place on your ticketing page where visitors can add comments or requests opens communication, so you can be prepared before they show up. It also allows you to tell a visitor what you can or can not do for them ahead of time.
Add alt text to images: This is covered in the WCAG guidelines, but adding alt text often ends up being a project all on its own. Alt text is descriptive text that is added to a visual image to provide information to those with low vision. It is typically added to an app or webpage to allow the text to be read by a screen reading software. While it is important to include on all parts of your website and social media, the biggest amount of work is if you have a large collection of images, this can become quite a task to take on, but can be taken on over time in sections by staff or trusted volunteers. Harvard provides good advice for writing alt text on their Digital Accessibility site.
Subtitles on social media posts and videos: Most platforms now can auto-caption videos though they aren’t always as accurate as adding captions by hand.
Use CamelCase for hashtags: CamelCase is capitalizing the first letter of each word in words not separated by spaces to make them easier to read. For example, #museumfieldtrips is easier to read if it is written as #MuseumFieldTrips.
Multi-lingual Posts: If an exhibit is accessible in different languages the marketing and outreach for that exhibit should include those languages, especially if it is important to the subject of the exhibit.
Entrance of Design Museum in London.
Virtual Entrance and Narratives: For those with autism or anxiety, coming to a new place they are not familiar with can be stressful. Being able to prepare themselves for a museum visit can help relieve stress to make it a more positive experience. Parents with children who deal with these issues can also use them as a tool to prepare them for the visit.
Entrance map: The first step is showing how to get to the museum. On your website and ticket confirmation email provide a map clearly marking the location and route from parking locations, close transit stops, and major walking routes to accessible entrances. I know I am not the only person who has had to make a full lap around the outside of a museum before being able to find the correct entrance, which would be a much bigger inconvenience for someone with a physical disability or a caregiver bringing multiple children. These maps can be custom illustrations or a simple mark-up of an image from Google Maps.
3D Walk thru: A higher-tech solution to provide a preview to visitors is the 3D walk thru, which many larger museums already incorporated. There are very fancy versions of 3D mapping (the Smithsonian Natural History Museum has a beautiful one here). The equipment to do 3D imaging is surprisingly affordable, but the more expensive part tends to be hosting fees. For a lower-cost version, a museum I have spoken to contacted a local real estate agent to do the 3D walk thru for them in exchange for credit on their site, since many real estate agents already use a service to host their 3D home walk thrus, it is a low-cost proposition for them. Offering a 3D walk thru or virtual exhibits can also give access to the museum content for those who are unable to make it to the physical museum location.
Photo narrative: For a simpler version to illustrate a museum experience, you can provide step-by-step photos of the path to enter your museum, from the street to the entrance to the front desk. If the museum is not the only business in the building, make sure to show a photo of each turn a visitor needs to make to get to the museum entrance. Photo narratives can walk through the whole museum with what to expect and photos. This can be especially useful in combination with a sensory map to allow caregivers of someone with autism to plan out a visit before arriving. Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has a great example here.
Museums for All: Part of accessibility is making your museum accessible to all members of the community. Museums for All is an IMLS initiative for museums to provide free or low-cost admission to low-income households who qualify for food assistance. Currently over 1,300 museums in the United States participate in this program (This is a program specific to the United States). Registering for the program is free, but does require some admin work and training for museum staff. More information can be found on their website.