Making Museum Exhibits Accessible for All: Approaches to Multi-Modal Exhibit Personalization

Creating Museum Media for Everyone is an NSF-funded collaborative project of the Museum of Science, the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media, Ideum, and Audience Viewpoints, to further the science museum field's understanding of ways to research, develop, and evaluate digital interactives that are inclusive of all people. As a part of this effort to enable museums to integrate more accessible media into their exhibits to make them more welcoming and educational for visitors with disabilities as well as general audiences, this paper provides an overview of approaches to media accessibility museums currently use and new approaches supported by the latest research on accessibility and personalization. Personalization creates another alternative, beyond the application of universal design principles, to enable more inclusivity while enhancing the quality of the exhibition design. The perspectives, technologies, and resources presented will be a useful guide as museum design teams begin their next exhibit design.

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