The Problem

Interacting with a museum can sometimes be rather two-dimensional: you walk, you observe, you meander along a predictable path. We’ve often thought that it’s hard to be in a museum if you’re “not in the mood,” that is, if you aren’t feeling deeply focused and if you aren’t prepared to spend hours walking and looking on in an almost tense silence, touching nothing, moving slowly, etc. In this way, we feel that museums can discourage engagement and over-value a studious silence. They sometimes enforce hands-off observation that can be just as draining as it can be intellectually engaging. Consider also the particular cases of:

  • children, who may especially struggle to follow these standards of behavior
  • the visually-impaired, who deserve an alternative entrypoint into the museum, which is primarily a visual experience
  • those who feel intimidated by the act of engaging with art; your people who “don’t get it,” where “it” is actually the intellectual point of inaccessibility.

So our question is, how do we make the museum more accessible? How do we provide alternative points of engagement for those who the museum may not necessarily be built for? How do we add dimension to the experience of being a museum visitor?

Accessibility in the British Museum Image by Brian Suda via Flickr

Going Deeper: Museums For All

Museums (and artists) are already doing a lot to add dimension to our experiences. Artists add auditory dimension to their works, which museums facilitate with speaker installations. Museums occasionally let you touch things or provide playrooms and creativity labs for you to get hands-on. People have also created scavenger hunts and guided tours to encourage interaction with exhibits.

These innovations engage people through multiple senses and brain faculties. They allow visitors to participate in activities and use their minds toward creativity and problem-solving. They also provide auditory texture which is particularly important for the visually-impaired.

We suspect that gamifying a trip to the museum somehow could do a lot to engage children and those who don’t consider themselves to be people who “know” how to interact with art. We also think that being consistent about involving multiple senses, especially hearing, in our designs can help us make sure the visually-impaired can have a richer experience in the museum. We propose new technology to directly address issues of museum inaccessibility, both physical and academic/intellectual.