What They Say About Us
I have been thinking about how discussions of museum accessibility shift based on the lived-experience of a majority of participants. When a group of blind people discuss museums, they talk about the limits of visual presentation and the scarcity of tactile objects. When a group of museum people discuss accessibility, they talk about everything from […]
Design Considerations for Creating Sonification
This post concludes a series of blog posts that I wrote about a presentation that I gave introducing museum people to the concept of sonification, representing data with nonspeech audio. Earlier posts in the series are Introducing Sonification, in which I discussed using sound to enhance storytelling. And Exploring Scientific Concepts And Data With Sonification […]
Tour of the FDR Memorial
In July 2023, I led two tours highlighting the braille and tactile exhibits that were installed at the FDR memorial last year. The tours were for 60 K-12 teachers who participated in professional development workshops focused on the disability history of the FDR Memorial and FDR presidency. The workshops were supported by a grant from […]
Tactile Exploration Helps People Remember Objects
I have written about the importance of tactile exploration for blind people who gather information about objects using their sense of touch. I think that tactile exploration also benefits sighted people. In this post, I discuss a study showing that people remembered more details about an object when they were encouraged to touch it. The […]
Commentary How Tactile Graphics Can Help End Image Poverty
An excellent article by Chancey Fleet was brought to my attention after I published a recent post. Tactile Drawing and Spatial Thinking. Chancey Fleet describes image poverty as the lack of tactile graphics. Read her excellent article, linked below. She discusses: How Tactile Graphics Can Help End Image Poverty By Chancey Fleet MIT Technology Review […]
Tactile Drawing and Spatial Thinking
In March 2023, I spent three days in New York City with 30 people who were learning and practicing tactile drawing. I am writing this post to describe that rare opportunity. Background To understand why opportunities to learn tactile drawing are rare, it is necessary to start by acknowledging that many sighted people favor some […]
Making History Accessible
I am pleased to announce the release of a digital publication titled Making History Accessible: Toolkit for Multisensory Interpretation. I am proud to have been a member of this collaboration. It details a range of digital and physical/tactile solutions to help make content created by historic sites and other educational facilities more accessible to people […]
Commentary: How Many Braille Readers
In this post, I will discuss a research paper that debunks the misleading, though often-quoted, statistic that only 10% of blind people in the United States read braille. That statistic has been repeated in academic research and in media stories. It is the favorite talking point for those who want to avoid producing materials in […]
Making the Ocean Accessible Through Sound
I have written about sonification, representing data with audio. My earlier posts were about astronomers analyzing data recorded by telescopes in outer space. The Accessible Oceans project also uses sonification to analyze data, but their data was recorded by underwater microphones. “Scientists are finding that people can sometimes pick up more information from their ears […]