Museums and the “Digital Curb Cut”

An online survey was conducted in November 2006 to better understand the key barriers to delivering accessible rich media online within the museum community. A similar survey was conducted among multimedia developers who produce media projects for cultural institutions. The current practices, institutional policies and attitudes towards accessibility are explored with both audiences in order to present a working comparison of understandings and perceptions.

Museums in the United States and abroad have largely been preoccupied with bringing their HTML-based web sites into compliance with accessibility standards; rich-media assets have frequently escaped this level of scrutiny. The survey revealed that accessibility is a relatively new concept for many museums, and has simply not been an institutional priority. However, this appears to be changing, as many museums and archives have very recently adopted policies on accessibility that include rich media assets. This is no simple task in large organizations, as one respondent indicated that it is “bureaucratically complicated to get accessibility standards adopted” by a state-funded agency. A large museum in the United Kingdom clarified that while there may not be institution-wide policies for web accessibility in place, there are project level requirements defined to serve this purpose. Several institutions surprisingly admitted that their web-based multimedia offerings have deliberately been curtailed due to the perceived inaccessibility of the medium.

Many of the comments provided by museum staff responsible for the development or commissioning of multimedia indicate that there is a willingness to explore accessibility from a wider perspective. Yet, budget and time constraints are often key barriers to delivering on this initiative. One respondent related, “If you’re doing things on a shoestring using part-time or volunteer labour, any web content is better than none.” Even if museums are committed to providing accessible media, their developers are often not able to deliver on that promise. A museum staff person in Canada submitted:

I have also found it difficult to find developers who know very much about accessibility implementation, particularly with regards to multimedia. Often we are the first clients asking them about certain standards/criteria. (unnamed respondent)

It is apparent that there is a growing market for accessible multimedia design not only in Canada, but also in the United States and Europe. Currently, museums are hiring a very small number of developers who have experience in accessibility for media rich environments. Two of these developers are interviewed in the subsequent case study chapters.

From the developers’ perspective, accessibility has largely been considered a “niche skillset” and not a requirement of standards-based design. Accessibility advocate Molly Holzschlag expanded on this concept:

Realistically, accessibility relies on aspects of web standards, but has in fact become a science, art, and practice of its own. It’s a deep specialty, and one that is highly problematic, as what might make a page accessible to one person could conceivably render it inaccessible to another. (Thatcher, et al., 2006, p. xxiii)

Developers typically do not acquire the skills to develop accessible media until a client requires it in the project specification. Very often, a compromise is reached to provide a text-only version of the multimedia in order to comply with the accessibility requirement. One developer explained:

We do a lot of interactives in Flash in which the interplay between visual content, interface states, and multiple outcomes mean that it is very difficult to create an accessible version that offers users with disabilities an equal experience. (unnamed respondent)

At present, it can be concluded that developers largely do not see Flash as an accessible medium.