5. Building your knowledge and who to collaborate with

It is essential to build a solid understanding of what access can be now and what you can implement to truly create a more accessible environment.  By examining what you do and who you do it for you will find ways to work that are achievable.  It is also essential to understanding that you cannot make any environment or experience fully accessible.  You may find a baseline of practice but you will never be able to make things accessible to all people at all times.  What you can do is establish practice for yourself and your context that will create a solid foundation for the access you will provide – its rationale and its implementation.

Improving accessibility in exhibitions begins with expanding and deepening sector knowledge. Many organisations still operate from partial or outdated understandings of what access involves, relying on minimal compliance rather than informed, creative practice. Developing literacy around disabled experiences, inclusive design principles, and current standards is essential but this learning must be continuous, contextual, and rooted in real-world practice rather than abstract guidelines.

Not early enough. Understanding standards. Thinking there is only one right way to do things.

Organisations sometimes assume that following a standard ensures accessibility for all, when in reality standards offer minimum baselines rather than comprehensive solutions. While existing standards and guidelines are useful reference points, they should not be interpreted as definitive or exhaustive lists. A more effective approach involves using standards as starting points while actively seeking input from disabled visitors and practitioners to tailor solutions to specific contexts.

Across the sector, colleagues can treat access as a tick-box activity added late in the process, rather than a practice that should shape decision-making from the outset. Accessibility fails most often because it is introduced too late for meaningful integration. Changing practice means embedding access thinking at the earliest planning stages, involving cross-departmental collaboration, and recognising that there is rarely a single ‘right’ way to implement accessibility.

Instead of defaulting to generic templates, organisations should engage with the evolving landscape of access practice and remain open to experimentation, adaptation, and iteration.

When access is embedded: 

• Visitor dwell time often increases because exhibitions offer multiple modes of engagement. 

• Disabled and non-disabled visitors use captions, transcripts, and audio guides. 

• Relaxed openings attract new audiences who might later return for non-relaxed sessions. 

• Staff confidence grows when access is planned rather than improvised. 

By contrast, retrofitted access often: 

• Feels disconnected from the exhibition narrative. 

• Requires reactive staffing solutions. 

• Leads to reputational risk when audiences encounter barriers that could have been anticipated. 
• Can exclude and marginalise disabled people. 

Check your knowledge sources

• When were your current access guidelines written? 

• Who wrote them? 

• Were disabled people involved? 

• Do they reflect digital as well as physical access? 

• Are they specific to exhibitions, or are they generic building standards?

Disabled people should be involved throughout the lifecycle of an exhibition: from concept development to design, delivery, and evaluation, organisations should build genuine, sustained relationships with disabled collaborators.

Establishing feedback loops – formal or informal – helps ensure that access measures are effective, relevant, and responsive. This involvement also reduces assumptions, challenges established norms, and ensures the work is grounded in lived experience rather than imposed from the outside.

Consider referencing the principles of Universal Design (the design of buildings, products, or environments to make them accessible to all people) as a starting framework: 

• Equitable use 

• Flexibility in use 

• Simple and intuitive design 

• Perceptible information 

• Tolerance for error 

• Low physical effort 

• Appropriate size and space 

However, Universal Design is not a finished solution – it is a mindset. It must be adapted to each exhibition’s scale, content, and audience 

• The Community Engagement Toolkit can be used to support you to plan, deliver, and evaluate community engagement work in museums, including engagement with disabled people.

There has been increased legislation, awareness and funding requirements tied to accessibility. While these have been positive in some contexts, there is a persistent challenge is the widening gap between what organisations say they value and what they do in practice. Access and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion policies may be ambitious, yet the resources, time, training, or commitment needed to implement them may be lacking. Recognising these gaps allows the exhibitions sector the chance to identify where change is actually needed: staffing, budgeting, project timelines, or organisational culture. Honest assessment of these gaps is an essential step toward closing them.

It is important to be honest and realistic about both the accessibility you can and cannot offer. This means that disabled people have the information they need so they know if they will face barriers or not

Here are some real-world examples.  Consider how you would build empathy and understanding around these. 

Examples of common gaps: 

Encourage: 

• Transparent reporting. 

• Publishing access limitations honestly. 

• Allocating responsibility for implementation. 

• Tracking what changes as a result of feedback. 

Honesty builds trust. 

• How do you currently plan for access?
• Who do you currently collaborate with?