Thirteenth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Although the constant emergence of providing new, renewed, and innovative visit experiences to the sighted public, millions of visually impaired persons worldwide still deprived of having ordinary ways of access to learning and engaging with collections. This research investigates how it is for someone blind or partially sighted to visit a museum nowadays. Semi-structured interviews with 72 visually impaired Portuguese individuals revealed reasons and factors that contribute to positive and negative visiting experiences, and the assessment of 16 accessibility resources demonstrates its frequency and potential usefulness in museum visits. It concludes that the actual limited experiences in museums could be surpassed and enhanced by moving beyond accessibility, by embracing inclusion and focusing on the creation of multimodal and multisensory approaches to promote exceptional, memorable, and exciting visiting opportunities for all.