Accessible audio resources
Use the resources below to learn more about audio and accessibility. This list is not comprehensive, but it offers a few ways to deepen your learning.
These resources were originally compiled for the Audio Storytellers Community of Practice. Interested in taking part? Join a community.
In This Article
Guiding principles
Accessible audio can benefit all visitors. Consider using these principles to inform your guide's content:
- Design for access from the start: Universal design builds access into the main experience and benefits all visitors.
- Involve people with disabilities throughout: Advisors and testers with lived experience should ideally shape projects at every stage.
- Label clearly and consistently: This avoids confusion for visitors of all abilities.
Who is accessible audio for?
Research on museum audio is growing. Studies show that description can benefit sighted visitors as well as blind and low-vision visitors. For example:
- Inclusive museum audio guides: 'guided looking' through audio description enhances memorability of artworks for sighted audiences (Hutchinson & Eardley, Museum Management and Curatorship, 2021): Researchers studied how sighted audiences respond to audio description.
- Devisualizing the Museum: From Access to Inclusion (Journal of Museum Education, 2022): This article argues that access works best when it's central to the museum's offerings, valued as creative work, and made with and for both blind and sighted visitors.
The Bloomberg Connects app supports screen readers, transcripts, and other accessibility features. For complete details, see An app for all abilities.
Plan an accessible audio project
The following resources can help you get started with accessible audio content.
- AAM: Tips for Creating Accessible Museums: Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning: An introduction to applying universal design principles, with audio examples.
- W3C WAI: Planning Audio and Video Media: This page helps you decide which accessibility features your media needs and understand the relevant Web Content Accessibility Guidelines standards.
Verbal description tours (also called "audio description tours") use language to convey the visual, spatial, and sensory dimensions of an artwork, object, exhibition, or space. For writing guidance, examples, and further reading, see Verbal description tours.
Multisensory approaches beyond audio
Touch, sound design, and digital tools can reinforce what a guide describes and enhance a visitor’s experience.
- Making History Accessible: Toolkit for Multisensory Interpretation: Guidance and prototypes from the Intrepid Museum and NYU Ability Project.
- Smithsonian: Inclusive Digital Interactives: Best Practices + Research: Essays on inclusive digital design in museums, with case studies.