Is your audio guide part of the problem or the solution?

Audio guides can be used in several environments, and if they are structured well, they can provide immense help for visitors. A few ideas where audio guides can be used are:

  • Museums and galleries

  • City tours

  • Parks

  • Zoos and aquariums

  • Botanical gardens

However, I have experienced many instances when otherwise good audio guides did not fulfill their promise and created a less than desirable experience, either because they had a conflicting message on the target audience, or they did not properly serve the people they meant to help.

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Travel Visions Aloha, adventures for the blind

The other day I came across a new article about Travel Visions Aloha for the Blind, which is an organization providing adventures and experiences for blind people, at the moment primarily in Hawaii. Though there are some similar organizations around the world, definitely not too many, so I contacted the owner, Marri Murdoch to learn more about her organization.

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Accessible Social by Alexa Heinrich, book review

I have come across a book that is a true gap filler in the industry:

Accessible Social

a beginner’s guide to creating inclusive social media content, by Alexa Heinrich

Why am I writing about this on a travel blog? Because it is a must read, or must use for people who use social media in the travel industry. For that matter, for anybody who uses social media in general, regardless of whether a casual Facebook user, or a marketing specialist.

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Accessible Social by Alexa Heinrich, book review

Accessible exhibit at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin

Last summer I was introduced to Ellis Lane, a curator from the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin. At the time he just started working on a project to make artwork accessible for visually impaired people. The Digital Reimaginings exhibit opened recently. Ellis didn’t only create a fully accessible program, but I really appreciated his approach to it, where I had the honor to collaborate with him.

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Difference between the accessibility page and the accessibility statement

There is often much confusion about how to write an accessibility statement or how is it different from your organization’s accessibility page. While there aren’t any rules set in stone, and ultimately you need to create these documents to serve your organization’s needs, generally there is room for both. They each serve a different purpose. In this article I will show you how to approach the two documents.

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Designing an inclusive and accessible alarm clock

Let’s play a design game. The task is to come up with the most accessible, most inclusive alarm clock.

I used to give this task to my classes when I was teaching at IBM, and we had the most thought provoking conversations.

There are no good or bad ideas here. But consider that the more inclusive you make it, the more features you add, the more expensive it will get, at some point it will be unreasonable. But the more you compromise on features, the less people will be able to use it.

Let me set one more rule here, it is a standalone clock. Anything it can do it is part of the clock you design. Otherwise, it would be easy to say that you will just connect to it using your phone and an app, which probably would be your most inclusive solution.

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Miniature 3d printed buildings for blind people

Miniature 3d buildings for blind people

It has always fascinated me how to explain what a building looks like to a blind person. But as they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, a tactile experience is also definitely more accurate than a thousand words. For that matter, the two together is the best approach.

Since I couldn’t find a resource where I could get the models of 3d buildings, I created my own.

Smithsonian Castle

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The Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland, book review

Andrew Leland, a journalist, audio producer, editor and professor, in “The Country of the Blind” writes about how he gradually lost his vision due to retinitis pigmentosa. But this book is much more than his story. One can view it as a history book about blindness and blind people.
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Your museum is not yet accessible, what can you do?

As I described earlier, a museum’s accessibility is not a true or false, for that matter, it never will be, but it is a continuous progress towards inclusion and exceptional accessibility. But if you feel that your museum could be more accessible, there is quite a bit you can do. It will not be an overnight process, but there is a lot you can do right now, practically at no or minimal cost to get started.

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