'Design for All' versus 'One-Size-Fits-All': the Case of Cultural Heritage (original) (raw)
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Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal, Volume 4, Issue 1, pp.409-434. ISSN: 1833-1874, 2010
We live in a scenario marked by a technological environment, from which emerges a new social concept of culture based on access to and enjoyment of information. Nevertheless, access to the various cultural and physical expressions of humankind is not just a product of the New Technologies, since there are particular idiosyncrasies associated with each environment and physical spaces considered as heritage that make necessary the use of more traditional technical solutions to assure maximum accessibility. Accessibility solutions applied to heritage sites must be integrated with their environment, without being aggressive to their preservation or integrity. These solutions seek the goal of bringing the cultural resources to the citizens, especially to those groups with different types of disabilities: blindness, reduced mobility, deafness, etc. Designs seek to make them direct participants in cultural events, changing their role from a passive to a fully active one. This approach turns the heritage site into a fully didactic, interactive area open to all participants. With this objective, this paper presents a study of the state-of-the-art adaptations implemented in different areas of heritage. We have observed access from the perspective of product design, analysing which devices have been put in place, such as instruments for signalling, information support, or tactile paving. We focus our research in two areas considered as World Heritage in Spain, taking significant examples of those distinct categories registered by UNESCO: Natural Heritage and Building Cultural Heritage, and analyzing the implemented designs. This analysis will allow us to identify and understand the solutions applied to deal with the idiosyncrasies of each site, and propose specific design guidelines for achieving cultural access in these enclaves.
Universal Design and Cultural Heritage
Studia universitatis hereditati, 2022
New technologies are vehicles for dissemination of cultural values. They also enlarge the number of persons that have access to heritage. This paper presents a web-based platform, developed within the Erasmus+ AD HOC (Accessible and Digitized Cultural Heritage for Persons with Disabilities) project that enables perceptual accessibility of such content for persons with disabilities. The main principle followed during the entire project duration was the principle of Universal Design – including accessibility for persons with disabilities from the very beginning and thus creating a generic model of an accessible platform for some important aspects of the cultural heritage of Macedonia, Slovenia, Greece and Italy.
Designing technologies for museums: accessibility and participation issues
Journal of Enabling Technologies, 2020
Purpose This paper aims to report the findings of a systematized literature review focusing on participatory research and accessibly in the context of assistive technologies, developed for use within museums by people with sensory impairments or a learning disability. The extent and nature of participatory research that occurs within the creation of technologies to facilitate accessible museum experiences is uncertain, and this is therefore a focus of this paper. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a systematized literature review and subsequent thematic analysis. Findings A screening of 294 research papers produced 8 papers for analysis in detail. A thematic analysis identified that the concept of accessibly has nuanced meanings, underpinned by social values; the attractiveness of a technology is important in supporting real-life usability; and that the conceptualization of participation should extend beyond the end users. Social implications The argument is made that increas...
Including visitor contributions in cultural heritage installations: Designing for participation
In this paper we discuss how an interaction design perspective on the design of interactive artifacts in public spaces can encourage us to explore certain issues concerning the inclusion of visitor input into our installations. We see the role of technology as supporting people’s experiences of heritage - moving away from simple delivery of information towards enabling visitors to add to the content of the exhibition. This approach encourages active reflection, discussion and appropriation, in the tradition of best practice in human-centred interaction design. In this paper we discuss two exhibitions/installations in which we have been involved, Re-Tracing the Past and the Shannon Portal. The former was developed with the objective of engaging visitors and enhancing their overall experience of a personal museum collection; the latter had the goal of encouraging visitors and travelers to share their experience of Ireland. We then discuss the impact of this design strategy, and analyse the role of visitors’ contributions to each exhibit, and the particular interactions between participants and the content they produced.
Co-Design to Empower Cultural Heritage Professionals as Technology Designers: The meSch Project
Interactive technology has been long deployed at cultural heritage sites for a variety of purposes (education, guidance, research, etc.) and in a variety of forms (from touch screens, to mobile guides, etc.). However, while there has been an increasing attempt to make the visitor’s interaction with technology and with the site more active and participative, curators and other heritage professionals have not yet been fully engaged as designers of novel interactive experiences of heritage. Heritage technology has been traditionally designed and developed by specialists, whereas curators and other staff have been playing the role of informants at most. In this chapter we present a co-design approach for the design of technologies for museum and heritage professionals that we are currently exploring as part of the meSch project: meSch bridges the gap between visitors’ cultural heritage experiences on-site and on-line by providing a platform for the creation of tangible smart exhibits that enables heritage professionals to compose and realise physical artefacts enriched by digital content without the need for specialised technical knowledge. The meSch envisioning and realisation approach is grounded on principles of co-design, the broad participation of designers, developers and stakeholders into the process, and on a Do-It-Yourself philosophy to making and experimentation. Hands-on design and making workshops are employed throughout the project to inform and shape development. The ultimate goal of the project is to support the creation of an open community of cultural heritage institutions driving and sharing a new generation of physical/digital museum interactives
Many and also different design approaches can be adopted to make cultural heritage accessible. These depend on the site being worked on, the solution being adopted and the functional result to be achieved. With the knowledge that there is not a standard solution, that a case by case basis evaluation is nec- essary and that it can always run into arbitrariness, in the present paper a ‘de alogue’ of design approaches, certain ones in opposition to one another, others similar to one each other albeit with different nuances, is proposed. The aim is not to produce a mere list of approaches, and certainly not to say that those proposed are comprehensive, on the contrary it is meant to highlight the complexity that the adoption of certain design solutions in a historic building brings. This complexity is linked both to the image, or to the aesthetic-compositional and perceptive aspects, as well as to the functionality related to its location and user-friendliness. However, the matter of the usability of cultural heritage, but in general of the built, is not only achievable, and however not completely satis- factory, with building interventions, but also through intangible equipment to facilitate the understanding (accessibility of the contents) of the property. In this perspective the ‘decalogue’ offers some possible approaches, sometimes co-present in the same projects, also those in opposition to one another, and this is to demonstrate that precast fixed solutions do not exist and the issue of the accessibility to cultural heritage requires an attitude which, even for ‘small’ interventions, is able to glean from the designing skills becoming an architectural project.
Inclusive Design Expertise for an Accessible Museography
The inclusive museum. Proceedings of the 1st and 2nd COME IN!-Thematic Conference. ISSN 1868-8586, 2018
This article focuses on the responsibility of the museograph to integrate accessibility considerations at the earliest exhibition planning stages and to not view them as an afterthought. The example of a visual-tactile display at the exhibition “Connectivités”, MUCEM, Marseilles, shows that exhibition design can provide unrestricted access to qualified, participatory and collaborative (educational) experiences for all visitors, outside of mediation programs. Museographs are therefore encouraged to work together with specialised designers who consider the nonstandard visitor and bring inclusive design expertise into museography. The design concept of Universal Design and its seven principles provide guidance in this respect. Its high creative potential for exhibition design poses the challenge for the designer “to think beyond the minimum requirements… [to] understand the needs of users well enough to make informed judgements and to effectively use the input of users with disabilities”. The author proposes the seven principles as a tool for museographs to better evaluate offers in public procurement processes.
ACCESSIBILITY TO CULTURE AND HERITAGE: DESIGNING FOR ALL
This paper is based on the Guide that was elaborated in the context of the European INTERREG IVC programme CHARTS (Culture and Heritage Added Value to Regional Policies for Tourism Sustainability) project by the Laboratory for Tourism Planning, Research and Policy (University of Thessaly). The Guide examines the Accessibility to Heritage for all people by defining three moments: a) physical accessibility: the visitor to / receiver of a cultural good uses his/her body structure and functions in order to move inside the product in its original material manifestation or experience sensorially its tangible or intangible reproductions, b) perceptual accessibility: the moment of understanding culture/heritage and it has to do with the perceptiveness of the receiver and is closely linked to the receiver’s educational background, way of living and habitual mode of intellectual operation and finally c) appropriational accessibility: the apex of accessibility is the combination of the two previously acquired moments and it happens when the visitor/receiver may consider culture/heritage as part of himself/herself (familiarization) and use the adopted experience to intertwine his/her own story (narrational production). The Guide supports the idea of a sustainable management of culture, heritage, tourism and it is inspired by the principles of Universal Design: all people should enjoy in the same way same benefits and high quality services offered. The Guide tries to clarify the misunderstandings connected to the notion of accessibility, proposes policies for achieving accessibility to all cultural activity and gives planning principles for the strategic management of accessibility to heritage.