Taking a holistic approach to accessibility — Inclusive exhibition design benefits everyone

Tactile Studio is a specialist design and production company with a team of around 30 people. The studio develops and produces inclusive educational resources for museums and cultural institutions – ranging from tactile models, tactile maps and site models with projections, through to scent stations and audio experiences, right through to interactive exhibits and hands-on elements. Furthermore, Tactile Studio advises museums on inclusive exhibition planning and supports them in creating diverse ways of engaging with art and culture.

Accessibility in museums is often reduced to individual, isolated measures or specific target groups. Inclusive design goes further: it creates experiences that enable as many people as possible to engage with art and culture, support intuitive navigation within the venue and, at the same time, enhance the overall quality of the museum visit. Visitor studies show that multisensory and interactive educational programmes lead to longer visits, greater interaction and a more in-depth engagement with exhibition content.

Drawing on practical projects – including those from the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig and other museums in Germany and Europe – the talk demonstrates how inclusive design can be integrated into the conceptual phase from the very beginning. The focus is on questions such as: Who are we designing for? What messages should reach visitors? And what framework conditions need to be taken into account?

Using specific examples, this talk demonstrates how museums can use multisensory, intuitive and user-centred design to develop experiences that cater to visitors’ diverse physical, sensory and individual needs, thereby enabling as many people as possible to participate.