Create your own visit: a Review of Visually Impaired Visitors access at Museum (original) (raw)

Development of Accessible Museum for Blind Tourists

IJDS Indonesian Journal of Disability Studies

As we know that museums store a lot of visual objects. So that blind people who do not have vision will have difficulty enjoying the visual objects of the museum. This study discusses the tourist attractions of the museum that can be enjoyed by blind tourists. To support this research, a qualitative research method with a case study approach was used. The results showed that blind tourists enjoyed museum attractions in two ways, hearing and touching. Information will be received by listening to museum educators explain stories about visual objects. Then to add information, blind tourists can touch the visual object. Accessibility that needs to be developed in Museum of the Asian African Conference is guiding block, braille, and audio media. Museum educators can be trained to be able to guide blind tourists properly.

Accessible Museums for Visually Impaired: A Case Study from Istanbul

Journal of Tourismology, 2019

Freedom to travel is a fundamental human right. Thus, disabled people should be able to travel. Disabilities are divided into subcategories, whereby vision disability is one of them. In the context of museums, there are some implementations for visually disabled people. However, there is still limited empirical investigation on the expectations, satisfaction, and challenges of visually impaired travelers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the expectations, needs, and challenges of visually impaired people visiting museums. In this vein, the study draws on a qualitative research approach employing data from visually impaired individuals to understand those individuals' perceptions, needs, and challenges. The study offers several practical implications to help museum managers enhance the experience of visually impaired visitors.

Accessible Museums' Facilities for Visually Impaired Visitors Applicable Project in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo

Journal of Architecture, Arts, and Humanistic Sciences, 2021

Museums are the memory of societies, the veritable images and the mirrors which reflect the heritage values on everyday life. Museums always inspire visitors and send their souls and minds to times and ages that are full of values and authenticity. Visiting museums is always one of the most attractive planned activities of any touristic program especially in a country like Egypt. Indeed, there are many unique great museums in Egypt where the government is working to apply many plans and strategies to improve these museums and upgrade their displays and facilities which attract visitors, support tourism and by extension increase the national income. The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in Cairo is one of the greatest Islamic museums in the world (The museum includes various and unique collections of artifacts, which number up to 100,000 pieces). This amazing museum reopened in 2017 after a car bomb attack targeting the Cairo Police Headquarters on the other side of the street which caused considerable damage to the museum and destroyed many artifacts. This paper is presenting an applicable approach (a current project) to enhance the visit to MIA for visually impaired and blind people by manufacturing copies of many collectibles masterpieces. In fact, there are many technological applications which help visual impaired and blind people when visiting museums, but the majority of these applications are expensive and require many arrangements. The objective of this paper is to describe and discuss the production process of selective masterpieces' copies which are produced to be ready for presenting side by side with the original pieces.

Argyropoulos, V. & Kanari, Ch. (2015). Re-imagining the museums through “touch”: Reflections of individuals with visual disability on their experience of museum-visiting in Greece.

ALTER, European Journal of Disability Research 9, 130-143. Abstract: The research aim of the present study was to investigate the experiences of individuals with visual disability regarding their visits to museums. To obtain relevant information, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 Greek individuals with visual disability aged between 19–59 years. The participants highlighted issues relevant to factors which facilitated or/and hindered their accessibility to Greek museums, such as escorts, museum tour guides, tactile access, prohibition signs “do not touch”, museum services and museum websites. Also, they referred to positive and negative emotions which were associated with their museum visits. Finally, they made suggestions aiming to improve the participation of people with visual disability to museums.

Proposal: Improving Disabled Access at the Archaeological Sites of Egypt

An important part of improving the quality of the travel experience of disabled persons to the ancient Egyptian temples of Luxor is removing the physical barriers that impact upon access. This proposal is aimed at informing the Ministry of Antiquities of the difficulties faced by visitors with physical disabilities and to provide workable solutions to enable these disabled persons to experience the magnificent historical sites of Luxor.

The Expectations of the Visually Impaired University Students from Museums

Th e aim of this study is to determine what the visually impaired students already know about museums, how museums contribute to their learning and what those students expect to gain from their visits to the museums in Turkey and thus, to enable them to have more valuable experiences. For this purpose, a visit to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations was organized for a group of visually impaired students. Th e study is a sample case study carried out with a small group. Qualitative data were obtained from interviews, observations, and the compositions written by the students to refl ect on their experiences after the visit. Th e data were encoded according to content analysis and then, categories and subcategories were formed. Th e results revealed that blind students expect to have the copies of the works of art, embossed forms of the drawings, and some explanations in Braille alphabet. Th ey would like some attendants to inform them about the museums while the other students who suff er from low vision expect to have more spacious and better lighted interiors, contrasting colors in exhibitions, and scripts in large-prints. Th e study shows that visits to museums are very beneficial for the visually impaired students, but unfortunately the educational activities for those students are still insuff icient in Turkey.

The accessibility of visually impaired people to museums and art through ICTs

Technium Social Sciences Journal, 2022

Human's involvement with culture is a vital part of his life, but what happens when someone is blind or visually impaired (VI) and how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) help the access to cultural locations? The difficulties and limitations that blind and visually impaired (BVI) persons face while visiting museums or art exhibitions are of high importance. These limitations concern both the access to the location and the perception of the exhibits. This bibliographic research is divided into four main parts. In the first part of our paper we will analyze the difficulties that these people face as visitors in art exhibitions and how their disabilities affect an autonomous visit. Afterwards, we will refer to the importance of the disability arts when combined with ICTs. In the next part, we will mention the projects that are already applied or those for which efforts have been made globally for their implementation. These will be accompanied by recorded feedback from blind and visually impaired visitors. Finally, we will make a scheduled visit to the Tactual Museum of Athens in order to collect material on practices used in their exhibition and we shall record reactions from visually impaired visitors.

Argyropoulos, V., Nikolaraizi, M., Chamonikolaοu, S., Kanari, Ch. (2016). Museums and people with visual disability: An exploration and implementation through an ERASMUS+ Project.(pp. 4509-4516). Proceedings of EDULEARN2016 Conference, 4 - 6 July, 2016, Barcelona, Spain.

Abstract: The access of people with disabilities to museums has become a major issue of interest for museums. Individuals with visual disabilities, which is one of the target groups of the present project, face many barriers regarding their access to museums, since museums are considered as spaces " of seeing " and " do not touch ". The present project titled " Bridging the Gap between Museums and Individuals with Visual Impairments " aims to support museums to develop various practices in order to enhance the access and inclusion of people with visual disability into their context and content. Museums, as audience-centered spaces, are required to enhance the access and inclusion of individuals with visual disability. However, this is a challenging task for museums and requires the collaboration between museums and organizations involved in the education and the protection of individuals with visual disabilities. This need for collaboration and interagency partnerships is the basis of the project, which aims to bridge the gap between museums and individuals with visual disabilities.

Enhancing the Blind and Partially Sighted Visitors’ Experience in Museums Through Integrating Assistive Technologies, Multisensory and Interactive Approaches

Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. User and Context Diversity, 2022

Despite the growing concern and several efforts to make museums accessible to visually impaired publics, their participation in these institutions is still limited, frustrating their desired inclusion. These visitors often experience multiple barriers in museological environments, and there is a lack of assistive technologies to promote access to exhibits, allow contextual information, and support mobility and orientation inside museum spaces. This paper presents the accessible, interactive, and multisensory exhibition “Mysteries of the Art of Healing”, which is organized in ten moments of an on-site visit to a history and science museum in Portugal, mediated by a set of technological solutions: an interactive 3D layout plan of the museum, seven high-fidelity prototypes of accessible interactives with thirteen 3D replicas, and one mobile application that acts as an assistive navigation guide during the entire visit. For its development, several principles proposed by a group of 72 blind and partially sighted persons to improve their autonomy during visits to museums were taken into account, namely: to provide sensory, intellectual, and physical access throughout the entire museum experience. Evaluation results with 25 visually impaired participants revealed the applicability of the developed solutions within this museum visit context, and global satisfaction results showed to be very positive and correlated to four variables: pleasantness of interacting with digitally fabricated objects, entertainment provided by the ten experiences, interaction with the developed accessible interactives, and pleasantness regarding the handling of manually fabricated replicas.