Exhibit Design Relating to Low Vision and Blindness Summary Report: Research on Effective Use of Tactile Exhibits with Touch Activated Audio Description for the Blind and Low Vision Audience

Introduction 

Imagine going out for a day with a friend or with your children. There is a new exhibit at your local museum that sounds interesting. You’ve heard that there will be hundreds of artifacts on display and there are lots of the newest interactive exhibits available with the latest computer interfaces and audio-visual media connections. You’ve also heard that all the exhibits are creatively designed and displayed with numerous labels that explain the exhibits. The day promises to be full of new and exciting experiences with many new things to learn about.

There is only one problem… you are blind. You can’t see any of the colorful graphics or the objects on display, and because the objects are in glass cases, you cannot touch them either. There is an audio tour available but that’s about all there is available to make your visit worthwhile. Perhaps the museum has a guide to explain what you cannot see. Then again, perhaps it would be easier to just download the audio tour, listen to it in your own home, and save the effort of going to the museum.

“Three of my four children have some level of visual impairment… I would just like to be able to take all my kids to a museum where they can all share the experience together… instead of the way it is now, where the three who can’t see have to wait for their sighted brother to tell them what he is looking at.” 

This quote was taken at an exit interview with the mother of four children following their participation in a unique research project sponsored by the National Institute for Disability Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). It says much about the museum experience for people with visual disabilities. This research project, the “Talking Tactile Fish Project,” was conceived and developed by RAF Models, Inc to explore ways that exhibits can be programmed and designed to make museum exhibits accessible to visitors who are blind or have low vision. The project has focused on the use of tactile exhibits, the development of design guidelines and methodologies, and on a new technology that is useful for making museum exhibits and exhibit information accessible to visitors with visual impairments. 

For RAF the inspiration for this project sprang from the observation that most informal learning environments, such as museums, visitor centers, historic sites, zoos and aquariums, provide very few ways for the visiting public who have visual impairments to have access to the information about exhibits. Part of a conversation we had with a blind visitor at a major new museum exhibition perhaps best sums it up. When we approached and asked about his experience at the exhibition he said: 

“…I often come to museums with my sister but don’t really expect to find anything for me to experience… but I do like spending the day with my sister, and she likes to go to museums…so I’m kind of along for the ride…"

We hope through our current research to change this paradigm and bring exhibits out from behind the glass.

We had two basic objectives for this research project:

1. develop guidelines for the design and fabrication of tactile exhibits;

2. develop the technology for a touch activated integral audio system that integrates exhibit information with tactile exhibit objects for use of the entire audience, while being easily accessible to the blind and low vision audience. 

The research data collected during the three year grant period provides important information to support a set of design guidelines for the development of tactile exhibit elements by exploring the effective use of tactile form, shape, and texture coupled with informational content.

The technological goal of the project was to develop a simple, inexpensive system where touching or exploring a tactile exhibit element initiates an audio description or interpretation without the need for buttons, switches or complex computer programs.

Our goal was to use these “hyper-artifacts” to integrate the interpretive information and the underlying theme of an exhibit program with the tactile experience. It is our hope that these touch-respondent “hyper-artifacts” will promote multimodal learning by linking interpretative messages to an exhibit learning experience that can be shared by all. The guidelines, based on Universal Design principles and best practices, are applicable to all 3-D exhibits in museums, visitor centers, historic sites, and other informal or recreational learning environments.

Historically, museums had their earliest beginnings in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century during the age of exploration and enlightenment as the private collections of academics, wealthy intellectuals, and explorers. As they began to crisscross the world, they collected and brought home objects, “curiosities,” from faraway places… souvenirs of their travels. Cultural and societal interest in these “curiosities” quickly increased. As it did, the size of the collections also increased. What could initially be displayed in the collector’s home or in a private university setting soon overwhelmed the space available, giving rise to the museum as an institution whose mission became to collect, preserve and interpret these “curiosities” as part of the history of world culture and civilization. While museums today wear many hats and carry many labels, they have their foundations firmly grounded in their “collections.” For this reason museums can be referred to as institutions for object-centered learning. 

Over the years museums have primarily presented their collections to the public through purely visual means with the objects often being located behind glass. If objects or sculptures were not located behind glass, there was a clear directive that the objects not be touched. In recent years museums have often added audio tours for the audience to listen to as they look at the objects. These methods have proved to be difficult or inaccessible for persons with visual impairments because they do not provide an equivalent experience to that which is available to the sighted audience. 

As a result the population who is blind or has low vision has been significantly underserved with respect to exhibits and their intellectual content. The introduction of tactile exhibits that include touch activated audio interpretive information will create a new paradigm of visitor experience for the blind or low vision populations.

For those not familiar with tactile exhibits, the following definition might be useful. 

Tactile exhibits are exhibits that include objects designed to be touched, handled, or manipulated by the visiting public and serve as an integral part of an information system or interpretive program. 

Tactile exhibits can include original objects, but generally they are specifically fabricated reproductions of real objects. A tactile object’s size and scale differ widely. Large objects such as models of building and landscapes can be scaled down so they can be explored in their entirety. Small objects such as models of insects or small animals are scaled up so they can be examined in detail. Frequently, sections or parts of objects, such as building ornaments or mechanical engine parts are represented. Again, they can be scaled up or down as necessary to communicate the desired information. 

Textures can be added to either represent features of the actual object or to serve as a tactile indicator of some interpretive point of interest. In most cases the tactile representation of color and contrast is incorporated as texture to provide the same information to the visually impaired audience that is being given by the color and contrast that is displayed in the original object. 

The materials used to fabricate tactile exhibits can vary widely. They can be rigid or flexible, but must be strong enough to withstand constant touching by the public. 

By far the most powerful aspect of tactile exhibits is that they serve all people. Generally, tactile exhibits are used to represent objects that are “out of touch” because they are too big, too small, too delicate, too dangerous, too precious, too far away, or, as with aquariums, from an alien environment. By making them accessible to all museum visitors you spark interest and curiosity provoking an exchange of interpretations, ideas and experiences for everyone, regardless of their abilities 

RAF has completed over 30 tactile projects of varying types including landform maps, battlefields, historic buildings, natural landscape features, people and animals and various artifacts. Construction materials for the models have ranged from molded plastic, fiberglass, various types of rubber, epoxy, and bronze. To the best of our knowledge all of these models are still in service.