It’s one of the most famous museum feelings of them all. You enter a museum with good intentions. An hour later, your feet hurt, your legs feel heavy, and your lower back is aching. Museum legs: the physical outcome of slowly shuffling and standing for hours. …

ADA. Accessible. Universal. Inclusive. We throw these terms around like they mean the same thing. They don’t. In Episode #61 of the Making the Museum podcast, experts Sina Bahram and Corey Timpson unpacked the differences with me.  …

One in four people has a disability. Why aren’t we designing museums better for them? Sina Bahram & Corey Timpson from Prime Access Consulting join Jonathan to discuss “Inclusive Design Will Change the World.”

When we say “accessible,” do we mean that we are easy to get to? (Location) That we are affordable? (Price) That we have no physical barriers to visitors with different abilities? (Facilities) Now, at this point, we’re all cleverly answering, “Yes!” …

For any audio-visual program, we must also offer that audio content in visual form.  And we all know closed captioning. But “open captioning” is the exhibition standard. That’s CC that’s permanent, aka “burned in,” and can’t be turned off. …

For those who hear, but not well, legally we must assist them to hear our audio better. In exhibition theaters, one approach is “assistive listening” systems. This is required anywhere visitors gather to experience content over time. …

Imagine an exhibition many of your visitors will never understand, because the main takeaways are audio-visual — and they can’t hear. Hearing loss in young people is actually on the rise (thanks, earbuds). And a third of people over 65 can’t hear well. …

So people with color vision deficiency can tell which light means “stop”. (Stop is on top in most of the US.) 5-8% of male visitors, and up to 1% of women, have it. Accommodating differences in color perception is complex, because there are many types. …

How can we raise the voices of people of color in museums and exhibitions — and what stands in the way? What is Museum Hue? What constitutes a sustainable museum job? Could exhibitions be one of the best places to make visible change happen?

“England and America: separated by a common language.” — George Bernard Shaw (via Eddie Izzard). To our list of Slippery Words of Our Field — program, development — let’s add “accessible”. All of its different meanings are vital to what we all do. But …

What if accessible design was for everybody, starting with … ourselves? How can a broader philosophy of access benefit every visitor? Phillip Tiongson (Potion) joins host Jonathan Alger (C&G Partners) to discuss the idea that “We Are All Temporarily Enabled” …