Language solutions that make the museum accessible for blind and partially sighted people

Language solutions that make the museum accessible for blind and partially sighted peopleNowadays there a lot about accessibility and inclusion thought, but how is it actually in practice?

Many museums experiment with all kinds of methods to blind people access to their collections. They use, among other things, guides, audio guides and image interpreters.

What do these solutions? What works well? What problems are there? An article on accessibility solutions for blind and partially sighted people in museums.

 

Ghent, Patrick Sprenger and Matthieu Raynauds Liesa Rahman receives us in the shady garden of the Huis van Alijn, the museum of everyday life in Ghent. After a renovation of the permanent Setup is the museum open again, now with a focus on customs, traditions and rituals in daily life, but also open to all possible ideas that can contribute to a better accessibility of the museum and more inclusion.

Liesa Rahman is accessibility officer at the Huis van Alijn. She is responsible for the development and implementation of measures to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. We are looking at today and tomorrow how accessible the Ghent museums are for blind and partially sighted people.


Right of access to culture

The administration of the Huis van Alijn starts from the fundamental right to access to culture and cultural experience. In practice, this means that the Huis van Alijn special tours for the blind and visually impaired. Specially trained blind guides take groups through the exhibition. To the limited vision of the visitors to compensate, make the guides using the other four senses to the objects on the visitors to explain.


In Group

To join a tour to take part, blind in group, preferably some weeks before the visit. The Huis van Alijn has three guides that Describe Verbally the specialized training. In this training you will learn how objects, works of art and all exhibitions in museums to blind and partially sighted people can explain. The tour for the blind and visually impaired in principle lasts as long as that for visitors without restriction.

An important point is that the blind much mental effort to the objects in an exhibition. They receive every time much more detailed descriptions of the objects than seeing visitors, because there are many additional aspects need to be explained, such as colour, material and form.

This helps the ability for the blind and visually impaired to duplicates of objects in the exhibition. That gives them a physical tactile experience with the objects.


Audio description

Other museums use different solutions to the accessibility for the visually impaired. That is demonstrated, for example, research by Laurence Davies. In the framework of her master's thesis compared them different audio descriptions for the blind and visually impaired in museums. For the pitching of her research she received in March 2018 during the Student Edition of the LIA's (Language Industry Awards) the language sector prize of the Jury "creativity and innovation".

The Musée Ianchelevici in La Louvière has a pre-recorded audio description of his exhibition. Basically, this audio description as a regular audio guide for impaired, but with additional information for blind and partially sighted people. This audio description for blind people makes it possible to visit the museum individually.


Images interpreter

There is also the Museum of Industry, labor and textile (MIAT) in Ghent the possibility that the visually impaired a sculpture interpretation. The images interpreter has the function of an extra pair of eyes for the blind visitor. It is similar to the app "Be My Eyes", which works the same way: you point your smartphone on what you want to understand and the person on the other side of the app tells you in real time what to see. Often the volunteers to the blind or visually impaired visitor explain what there is to see. This solution also makes it possible for the blind the museum visit individually. The MIAT was one of the first museums to this solution.


Spontaneous museum visit?

Each solution has advantages and disadvantages. So it is difficult for the blind to spontaneously to visit a museum, as the museum only images interpreters or on-site guides, because both solutions require early notification by visitors.

A spontaneous visit to museum is for blind and partially sighted people is only possible if there are audio guides with audio description.

In addition, there is a large variation in quality between the different accessibility solutions for blind and partially sighted people. Not all museums follow the guidelines for accessibility for the blind and visually impaired of blind organisations such as light and love. So showed Laurence Davies that the guides of a museum no sufficient training by her studied had Verbally Describe.


Interaction

One advantage of a guided tour or a images interpreter opposite an audio guide is that questions, interaction between Guide and blind or visually impaired and also additional support and information as possible. If help is needed to better understand something, a guide questions, unlike the audio description. Also create guides the visit more personal. They also give lots of useful information about the area, such as "here is a step" or "Beware, there is something in the way".


Solutions combine

According to Laurence David it is better to combine the different accessibility solutions to disadvantages from one solution with the advantages of another. The ideal situation would be that in any museum a specially trained Guide to the individual blind and partially sighted visitor is available, and that the guidelines for optimal accessibility.


Cooperation

In the Huis van Alijn there is only one tour of 90 minutes. They plan to increase their offer, and other solutions for the blind. Specifically, they want to offer audio description, so that an individual and spontaneous visit. Further efforts with other museums to work together to find common solutions to increase accessibility for the blind.


How to reach the target group?

But the biggest problem is that all these accessibility solutions among blind and partially sighted people are insufficiently known. One reason is that blind and partially sighted people not good by the classic media can be reached. Museums have unfortunately not enough resources for all these solutions and even less to draw attention to a large audience.

Patrick Sprenger (Germany) and Matthieu Raynaud (France) worked on August 7 and 8, 2018 at the Language sector. They did that in the framework of their participation in the Dutch Language Union summer course, which is organized at the University of Ghent. This article is the concrete outcome of their work. With special thanks to anyone who can help spread this article under the target group who it may concern.

 


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Author: Patrick Sprenger en Matthieu Raynaud

Machine translation: SDL Machine Translation (previously SDL BeGlobal)

Post-editing: No post-editing

Source language: Nederlands (nl)


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