Building inclusive visitor experiences, where to start?

Who?

Think of your audience. Who are you trying to reach? If you want people to understand the story, you have to speak their language. Find experts who can help you achieve that. Within your team, you will want to involve the curator, and possibly educators. But think of external partners too. A script writer or audio guide producer can help you make the most of your content. If you are creating a tour for a specific target audience, get them involved. When you are doing a tour for children for example, why not ask a teacher to proofread your texts, to make sure you have struck the right chord?

What?

What is the story you want to convey? No doubt you will have lots of beautiful objects to talk about. But be selective. Avoid overwhelming your visitors with too many stops. Keep in mind that 150 written words will result in a little over one minute of recorded text. We find that an average of 200 words works best. However, if a story is exceptionally thrilling, amazing or emotional, just go ahead and give it the length it deserves.

Where?

Think of exactly where you want to tell the stories. You can choose to link stories to the works of art or objects, or you can tell a more general story - in a room description, for example. Imagine visiting your museum in a wheelchair. Can you actually see the objects the tour describes? Can you get close enough? Furthermore, spread out the stops, to avoid having too many people viewing the same object. This is particularly relevant in Covid-times. Your audio guide can help visitors keep a safe distance from one another.

Create for a wider audience

Setting up your script, be aware that you are writing for the ears. Avoid complicated words and sentences. Texts are sometimes full of (art historical) jargon or assumed prior knowledge. With a few easy adaptations, you can render a text comprehensible for a wider audience. And this is where our Podcatcher can open up a world of possibilities… The ABC buttons can be used to offer extra layers of information, in text, in video, and even tactile, thus helping to enhance the experience.

Tours for the blind

For blind or visually impaired visitors especially, audio guidance is essential. One option is to create separate content for this specific group, a second would be to enrich your standard tour by adding descriptive audio in one of the layers. This audio can consist of a voice literally recreating a picture for the listener, describing measurements, depicted scene, colors used, painting techniques and effect; but think of music, too, creating the atmosphere depicted. Special tactile buttons for the Podcatcher make the ABC buttons easy to find. An added bonus is that a descriptive tour in our experience is not only much appreciated by visually impaired visitors, but also by people with autism, and by people who are more comfortable listening rather than reading. And again… be sure to consult the target group for feedback.

Tours for the deaf

Guide-ID’s mobile website features a text overlay option, that displays the texts of your museum’s audio tour on the mobile phone of your visitor. However, our advice would be to create a special tour for the hard of hearing, using a customized version of your primary tour, rewritten in apt language. Better still: go for a Sign Language tour, it being a primary language for many visitors. In our MapMyVisit App we now have the option for a Sign Language video tour, which can be managed on the same platform as your other tours.

Allow us to help you

Interested? Please reach out to us at Guide-ID. We’ll be happy to help you make your museum open to all.