Accessibility of Virtual Museum Spaces in the 21st Century in Turkey

Abstract

Museums, which are the embodiment of art, exhibition, culture, and science, have started to offer virtual space experiences as well as traditional physical space experiences in recent years. In addition to the development of technology, the pandemic, which started in 2019 and affected the whole world, has also been effective in accelerating the transformation of museums from physical space to virtual space. The increasing use of virtual museums directly concerns different user groups in terms of accessibility. In a physical museum experience, solutions that appeal to different types of users are generally produced. Thanks to these solutions, an individual with any disability can be included in the space with all senses such as sight, touch, smell, and hearing during a museum visit, while the lack of inclusion of all senses in the virtual space experience causes the experience to be more limited. This study discusses this limitation in terms of accessibility. How can the virtual space experience be more accessible for different types of users? Can different solutions be offered to all user groups for a better understanding of the space and the art product? These questions constitute the research questions of this study. In this context, this study aims to examine how accessible virtual museums are. The study has conducted this inquiry through 59 virtual museums in Turkey. As a method, virtual museums were classified and tabulated in terms of their accessibility levels in line with their characteristics. It was concluded that there are deficiencies in the experience of different types of users and various suggestions were made in terms of virtual accessibility.