Understanding Curators' Practices and Challenges of Making Exhibitions More Accessible for Blind and Low Vision People

Abstract

Assistive technologies are increasingly developed and applied in exhibition environments to help blind and low vision (BLV) people deal with the challenges they face when visiting exhibitions. While studies have examined the experiences of BLV people using such technologies, little is known about the experiences and challenges of curators incorporating assistive technologies into exhibitions to make them more accessible to BLV people. This research focuses on assistive technologies for BLV people in exhibitions from a curatorial perspective. We conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty-two experienced curators to understand their practices and challenges. We also curated a list of assistive technologies from published papers and used them as probes to seek curators’ attitudes and perceptions of such technologies. We uncovered four critical themes related to curators’ challenges of making exhibitions more accessible to BLV people. We further identified a vicious circle, which prevents curators from making exhibitions more accessible and discussed possible ways to support curators in making exhibitions more accessible to BLV people.