Module 4. How to design a virtually accessible art exhibition

Introduction 

The first museum and art gallery exhibitions took place in 19th century. They relied on the visual approach to show artefacts and art works. Curators use this way to design exhibitions.

Most museums and art galleries use the deficit model to make their exhibitions accessible. It creates the same experience to disabled visitors like for non-disabled ones. But museums and galleries need to adapt their content. They need to make it understandable for all.

Virtual exhibitions help disabled people to enjoy museum objects and art gallery works. They can use their laptops and mobile phones for this.

The Internet help museums and art galleries to show objects online. They can use web-based tools to adapt the exhibited content.

What?

Where to virtually present an accessible art exhibition

• On mobile apps–they show museum or art gallery works on visitors’ phones or tablets. Some offer virtual self-guided tours. Artefacts are in different formats. They use alt text images. Some use visual descriptions. Others use interactive touchscreen.
• Via QR codesand online collection management systems, like Artwork Archive – they allow museums or art galleries to create QR codes for their artworks. The visitor scans the code. They go to the cultural institution’s Public Profile. There they can find more information about the artefact / artwork in an adapted way.
• Through virtual 360-degree tours on museum / gallery websites–during the COVID-19 pandemic most museums and art galleries digitalised their collections. Some set up separate virtual galleries on their websites. There visitors can browse the collection data base. They explore one or another artefact or artwork. Some museums and art galleries also offer 360-degree tours. (for example – 3D Tour – National Archaeological Institute with Museum (naim.bg)).
• Via podcasts / Radio Shows – they provide adapted audio description of some of the artefacts. Users can find podcasts on the museum or gallery website. Podcasts organize information in a similar format as the exhibition. Each episode presents one exhibit. Each chapter presents one exhibit zone. The listener can choose to jump ahead, adjust the speed, skip, or rewind. Podcasts can offer web links for exhibition images, alt-text, and screen readable text.

Biggest mistakes in digital virtual accessibility

The biggest problems to people with disabilities when browsing an online exhibition are:

• Lack of captions
• Small font size
• Zooming problems
• Walls of text
• Low contrast and images with text
• Too bright colour schemes
• Relying only on colours
• Mouse-focused sites
• Too small touch targets
• Motion, animations and cluttered pages
• CAPTCHAs.

Some of the key components of a successful online exhibition are:

• The exhibition has to be distinct from the main website. Layout and interaction have to work well on mobile applications and desktop formats.
• Information about what is on the website has to be on the top of the webpage. Example: there are instructions on how to operate with the modules.
• The navigation tools have to be on the left side of the screen. The graphic design has to be high contrast.
• The creative works have to be as large as possible. Photos have to include alt-text, audio descriptions, and artist descriptions. It is necessary to provide ability to choose whether to go in-depth or to skip certain content.
• It is better to audio-describe an exhibited object not to create and replace it with an audio substitution. Example: it is better to audio-describe the photo of a car than to use a sound effect of a car.
• Text has to be on a plain background. Typeface design should not be broken up.
• The form of voice for reading digital text has to be a robot voice not human (for text readers). The tone of a human voice for audio description should complement the mood of the story.

Examples of free and open source tools how to develop a virtual exhibition or digital archives and collections (source: 5 Open Source Tools to Create Digital Exhibitions [oedb.org])

• Omeka – a free, open-source web publishing system for online digital archives – http://omeka.org/;
• Collective Access – a free, open-sourcecataloguing tool and web-based application for museums, archives and digital collections – http://collectiveaccess.org/;
• CollectionSpace – a free, open-source collections management application for museums, libraries, historical societies, and other organizations with special collections – http://www.collectionspace.org/;
• Open Exhibits – a multitouch, multi-user tool kit that allows you to create custom interactive exhibits – http://openexhibits.org/.

How?

A step-by-step guide how to design a virtually accessible art exhibition