Tips for Making Human-Centered Museums

by Joel Sanders, FAIA, JSA/MIXdesign (a resource from the March 18 webinar, "Making Inclusive Museums Now")

• Overlapping Needs: Unlike most accessibility standards in the USA that tend to focus on people with physical disabilities alone, it is vital to consider the needs of a broader spectrum of the population based on the conviction that human experience is constituted by a variety of overlapping factors. For this reason, we consider the relationship between disability neurodiversity, gender.

• Beyond Code Compliance: We advocate for an alternative to the approach that is characteristic of most accessibility standards which tend to provide separate accommodations, like accessible entrances and ramps, that isolate and as a consequence stigmatize people who are different than the norm. Instead, our objective is to create spaces that allow the maximum number of people—individuals, friends, families, and caregivers—to share the public spaces that shape our daily lives while also providing options for people who have unique functional, religious, or privacy needs.

• Designing from the Margins: Human centered design promises to be a catalyst for creativity, so long as we make sure to invite the diverse users who have historically been excluded to the table and allow them to share their unique perspectives. People with different physical, sensory, and social abilities as well as people from different racial, ethnic, and religious communities who engage with the built environment using different faculties, senses, and customs  provide valuable insights that spark design innovation, lessons that will allow us to reimagine museums as immersive, multisensory environments places that welcome each one of us, no matter our identities or embodiments, to encounter works of art using multiple sense perceptions: sight, sound, and even touch.

Human-Centered Museum Resources

Click here to access the Making Inclusive Museums Now report.

Jill Rothstein is Chief Librarian of the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library in New York City, New York. She has presented at the National Library Service conference, Metro Libraries conference, and Harvard’s World Heritage Strategy Forum. Last year she became the first library staff to receive a Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD®) Award for Emerging Leaders. Here, she shares about the New York Public Library’s expansive accessibility initiatives, including their newest program, Dimensions.

VSA & Accessibility: You have worked at several New York Public Library branches in different positions, how and when did you start incorporating accessibility into your roles?
Jill Rothstein: When I was a children’s librarian and then branch manager at the New York Public Library’s 67th Street branch I joined a group of staff working on serving children with  disabilities. That was my entry into the work.

In 2019, the Jewish Museum in New York, New York launched new audio tours intended to illuminate the Museum’s collection. Funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the tours bring new perspective to a museum visit through artists’ voices, a variety of lenses grounded in Jewish traditions and rituals, lively conversations with grade-schoolers, and more. The tours are available via the web at Tours.TheJewishMuseum.org and are easily accessible for both on-site and off-site use.

 This month we speak to JiaJia Fei, Director of Digital, and Nora Rodriguez, Interpretive Media Producer, at the Jewish Museum about conception and creation of the tours. 

Founded in 2013, The A11y Project is an open-source, community-driven effort aiming to make it easier to implement accessibility on the web. Four main values guide the site; The A11y Project is open, communal, approachable, and authoritative. Similar to the mentality and the work many of VSA International Network members are doing, The A11y Project site emphasizes the importance of the accessibility community, “the web accessibility industry is small, but welcoming—we’re all in this together. Our successes build off each other’s efforts, and are performed in the service of others. We highlight people doing good work.” 

Seven years ago, Danielle Hark founded Broken Light Collective, a nonprofit organization that offers photographers affected by mental health challenges a space to share their work. Here, she talks about creating a venue to share both her own work and the work of other artists.

What is Broken Light Collective?
Danielle Hark: Broken Light Collective is a nonprofit organization that helps empower people affected by mental health and developmental challenges using photography. We strive to create safe and accepting environments, both online and through live exhibitions and workshops, where photographers of all levels affected by mental illness can display their work, as well as inspire one another to keep going and keep creating, despite any challenges they encounter. The types of photography we feature vary greatly, and include self-portrait, nature, abstract, and street photography. No matter the genre, through art we can observe and share in the darkness and light of living with mental illness.