Museums for all: towards engaging, memorable museum experiences through inclusive audio description : WestminsterResearch

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Title	Museums for all: towards engaging, memorable museum experiences through inclusive audio description
Type	PhD thesis
Authors	Hutchinson, R.
Abstract	Museums seek to offer their visitors a rich and rewarding experience that is accessible and inclusive. Many museums rely on vision as a means of access to collections. Yet having vision does not necessarily mean that visitors are able to engage with exhibits. Audio Description (AD) has traditionally been defined as an access tool for people who are blind or partially sighted (BPS), which seeks to make visual information accessible though spoken language. However, AD could simultaneously provide ‘guided looking’ for people with sight. This interdisciplinary thesis sets out the first empirical investigation of AD in museums and its potential as inclusive design. Study 1 examines current understandings of museum AD, through an international practitioner survey. It reveals disagreement regarding whether AD should aspire to be an objective visual-verbal ‘translation’ or whether it should incorporate interpretative techniques in order to provide a rich experience. Study 2 explores the nature of the museum experience by analysing autobiographical memories for museum visits, demonstrating the importance of thoughts, feelings and personal context in museum memories and demonstrating an autobiographical memory coding model. Study 3 investigates the impact of AD on the experience, engagement and memorability of sighted participants, with AD resulting in richer memories compared to standard audio guides or minimal text interpretation. Study 4 compares sound enriched and standard AD on the experience, engagement and memorability of blind and sighted people, finding experience benefits for all and memorability benefits for BPS people. This research therefore concludes that AD should be taken out of its access ‘niche’ and considered as an inclusive interpretation tool to enhance engagement and access for all visitors. It argues further that the development of inclusive museum AD should be driven by a fuller understanding of the nature of the museum experience and its lasting impact.
Year	2019
Publisher	University of Westminster
Published	Dec 2019
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)	https://doi.org/10.34737/vv821
Web address (URL)	https://research.westminster.ac.uk/v01vw/museums-for-all-towards-engaging
Accepted author manuscript	thesis_RachelHutchinson.pdf File Access Level Open (open metadata and files)

Related outputs

‘I felt I was right there with them’: the impact of sound-enriched audio description on experiencing and remembering artworks, for blind and sighted museum audiences
Hutchinson, R. and Eardley, A.F. 2024. ‘I felt I was right there with them’: the impact of sound-enriched audio description on experiencing and remembering artworks, for blind and sighted museum audiences. Museum Management and Curatorship. 39 (6), pp. 733-750. https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2023.2188482

Devisualizing the Museum: from Access to Inclusion
Eardley, A.F., Thompson, H., Fineman, A., Hutchinson, R., Bywood, L. and Cock, M. 2022. Devisualizing the Museum: from Access to Inclusion. Journal of Museum Education. 47 (2), pp. 150-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/10598650.2022.2077067

Visitor studies: Interdisciplinary methods for understanding the impact of inclusive museum AD experiences
Hutchinson, R. and Eardley, A.F. 2022. Visitor studies: Interdisciplinary methods for understanding the impact of inclusive museum AD experiences. in: Taylor, C. and Perego, E. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Audio Description Routledge.

Inclusive museum audio guides: ‘guided looking’ through audio description enhances memorability of artworks for sighted audiences
Hutchinson, R. and Eardley, A.F. 2021. Inclusive museum audio guides: ‘guided looking’ through audio description enhances memorability of artworks for sighted audiences. Museum Management and Curatorship. 36 (4), pp. 427-446. https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2021.1891563

Remembering Cultural Experiences: lifespan distributions, richness and content of autobiographical memories of museum visits
Hutchinson, R., Loveday, C. and Eardley, A.F. 2020. Remembering Cultural Experiences: lifespan distributions, richness and content of autobiographical memories of museum visits. Memory. 28 (8), pp. 1024-1036. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2020.1811874

The accessible museum: towards an understanding of international museum audio description practices
Hutchinson, R. and Eardley, A.F. 2020. The accessible museum: towards an understanding of international museum audio description practices. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness. 114 (6), pp. 475-487. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145482X20971958

Museum Audio Description: The Problem of Textual Fidelity
Hutchinson, R. and Eardley, A.F. 2019. Museum Audio Description: The Problem of Textual Fidelity. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice. 27 (1), pp. 42-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2018.1473451

Enriched Audio Description: Working towards an inclusive museum experience
Eardley, A.F., Fryer, L., Hutchinson, R., Cock, M., Ride, P. and Neves, J. 2017. Enriched Audio Description: Working towards an inclusive museum experience. in: Halder, S. and Czop Assaf, L. (ed.) Inclusion, Disability and Culture: An Ethnographic Perspective Traversing Abilities and Challenges Springer.

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Museums for all: towards engaging, memorable museum experiences through inclusive audio description

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