08 Oct ODL Fellow Halsey Burgund led the development of Access App

OpenDocLab fellow Halsey Burgund led the development of the Access App which improves access to museums for blind and low-vision visitors. Access App is designed and modeled on Roundware, an audio augmented reality tool created by Burgund. The project was funded by an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant awarded to a multi-museum consortium, including the Peabody Essex Museum, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center and more.

Detailed description:

The Access App was a project to develop a reusable toolkit which can be adopted by a wide range of museums and cultural organizations to build their own apps crowdsourcing verbal description of objects and experiences. On this site, you can find information relating to how we did the project – including all our research and evaluation findings. There are also our learnings for how to go about building an app, such as advocating to your institution, and accessibility best practices. You can also directly access the opensource code developed, and use it to create your own unique Access App.

The Access App project intended to foster collaboration in the museum field and improve the museum and cultural arts experience for everyone.

Through an inclusive design approach to the Access App opensource code, our aim was to challenge and dislodge common approaches to accessibility as an add-on: as something separate from “mainstream” content and interpretive offerings. Instead, we hoped to demonstrate that an accessible mobile experience is a better experience for everyone, using crowdsourcing as a way of enabling social sharing of cultural experiences.

The project lasted three years from October 2014-September 2017.