Evaluating audio description and emotional engagement for BPS visitors in a museum context

Wang, Xi; Crookes, Danny; Harding, Sue-Ann; Johnston, David

doi:10.1075/ts.21019.wan

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Potential BPS visitors have a valuable role throughout the design process, even before any technology is introduced. For example, in developing our smart guide, we began by first carrying out an extensive visitor experience study in Titanic Belfast (Wang et al, 2020(Wang et al, , 2022.…”

Section: Bps Visitorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To discover the requirements of BPS visitors, we first took several groups of BPS visitors on a tour of Titanic Belfast and spent some time during and after the tour exploring their visitor experience and feedback (Wang et al, 2020). Later, we demonstrated a prototype of our smart guide to a focus group (Wang et al, 2022, Wang, 2023. From this, the key BPS user requirements were found to be as follows:…”

Section: Bps Visitor Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Co-design of a Voice-Driven Interactive Smart Guide for Museum Accessibility and Management

Wang

2024

JAT

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This paper describes the process of co-designing and creating a voice-driven interactive smart audio descriptive guide for Titanic Belfast, a world-leading tourist attraction. This smart audio descriptive guide is intended to enhance museum accessibility and visitor experience, especially for blind and partially sighted (BPS) visitors. A key research question is to explore to what extent museums can conveniently produce their own smart guide to enrich the visitor experience for BPS visitors. The paper first outlines the necessarily complex set of team functional roles and users in designing the smart audio descriptive guide and then presents the main challenges and opportunities arising from the key user requirements from both BPS visitor and the Museum Management perspectives. The main design features of the smart audio descriptive guide, which address these requirements, are then described. The paper then outlines the main findings of our evaluative review of the smart guide with a group of BPS participants and from a Museum Management perspective. One of the key benefits of our approach is that the smart audio descriptive guide has the potential to offer museums and cultural venues a new, affordable approach to providing and maintaining a high-quality accessibility experience with lower design effort than traditional audio descriptive guide approaches. Lay summary: I developed a voice-driven interactive audio descriptive guide specifically for Titanic Belfast, one of the leading tourist attractions globally. The audio descriptive guides are commonly used in museums to provide verbal description of visual information for blind and partially sighted (BPS) visitors. Most of these guides are keypad based and cannot answer questions from visitors. My innovative guide is designed with the aim to incorporate some new features such as voice driven and chat function, to enhance accessibility and visitor experience, primarily for BPS people. The creation of this guide involved a detailed process where the needs of the BPS visitors and museum management were carefully considered to address various challenges and seize opportunities to enhance accessibility. Key design features of the guide were developed to meet these specific needs, making the museum experience more inclusive. An evaluation conducted with BPS participants has shown some promising results. The new guide not only meets their needs effectively but also offers an affordable solution for museums. This approach reduces the effort and cost typically required to create an audio descriptive guide, presenting a sustainable option that could be adopted by other cultural venues looking to improve accessibility and visitor engagement.

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Section: Bps Visitorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bps Visitor Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-design of a Voice-Driven Interactive Smart Guide for Museum Accessibility and Management

Wang

2024

JAT

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Translating gardens into accessible multisensory tours for blind and partially sighted visitors: an exploratory case study

Wang

2024

Univ Access Inf Soc

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This paper presents an exploratory case study which illustrates the first stage of our multi-stage methodology for translating gardens into a multisensory and accessible tour for blind and partially sighted (BPS) visitors and gathering feedback to be used in a future project on producing a smart audio descriptive guide to assist BPS visitors to appreciate gardens in a multisensory way. The key research questions are: how can the multisensory potential of gardens be translated into an accessible experience for BPS visitors? and to what extent can a smart audio descriptive guide enable access to gardens and provide multisensory visitor experiences primarily for BPS visitors? Our multi-stage methodology begins with an exploratory case study in which a group of BPS visitors were led by a human guide on a tour of the historic Hillsborough Castle and Gardens. The first stage involved the tour guide and accessibility expert working closely together to plan the multisensory garden tour. Then the actual tour of the gardens was carried out with a small group of BPS visitors. In-tour questions for the BPS visitors stimulated reflection and feedback, and interviews were carried out at the end of the tour. The paper presents some of the more significant observations which emerged from the tour, and draws conclusions about the extent to which a smart audio descriptive guide could provide many of the benefits of a human guide, and its advantages and inherent limitations. Some of these findings are relevant to those planning similar visits in other garden venues, including for broadening the application for universal access.

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Evaluating audio description and emotional engagement for BPS visitors in a museum context

Cited by 2 publications

References 30 publications

Co-design of a Voice-Driven Interactive Smart Guide for Museum Accessibility and Management

Co-design of a Voice-Driven Interactive Smart Guide for Museum Accessibility and Management

Translating gardens into accessible multisensory tours for blind and partially sighted visitors: an exploratory case study

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