4. Don’t do this: skip the pitfalls in exhibition accessibility

We know from section one that not knowing where to start can be one of the biggest barriers to taking action.  The sections ‘Don’t do this’ and ‘Do this instead’ are designed to help you get started and to skip over many of the concerns that hold people back from taking action.

It can be challenging to navigate what you should and should not do to improve access and make impactful change.  This section aims to highlight some of the core recurring issues that can arise so that you can navigate them.  The information here deepens the conversation about why access and equity for disabled people is important, exposing the issues so that you can be aware of them and start your work from a stronger place.

Making impactful change is an organisational and shared responsibility and should not fall on one individual, area of work or project.  However the teams of people that come together to make exhibitions are made up of individuals who will all hold different levels of knowledge and confidence in this work.  There are some key areas that typically create breakdowns in the progress to longer-term impactful change.

Access is not solely the responsibility of learning and/or engagement teams, visitor services, or curators—it is sector-wide work. Everyone involved in exhibitions, from leadership to architects, contractors, designers, artists, and technicians, needs to understand how their role shapes access. For real change to take root, organisations must invest in training, shared learning, and cultural shifts across all levels of staff, partnerships and contractors. Similarly, where there is recognition that something is not right, staff in front line roles must be empowered and enabled to challenge those in power in order to enact access measures.

Taking as a starting point that most people want to get it right, let’s look at key areas where it can typically go wrong to provide us with some guidance on what not to do in our roles and the work we undertake.

People aiming to make things more accessible may be swamped by information on how to do it.  Or, if they are not, they are a few clicks away from any number of documents to guide and advise.  While the sector is rich in toolkits, guidelines, and best-practice documents:

• they are not always known about or there is lack of clarity of which to use and which to avoid because they are outdated or ineffectual
• where they are identified and read, they are not acted on

The issue with such resources is that they can only ever be a starting point. Any approach an organisation or an exhibition maker may take should be about the very specific context of the work that they are doing – the when, where and what of your work will always create a unique set of approaches and actions.

While good access practice can be underpinned by core principles and approaches, standardised approaches, simplistic checklists and impairment-focussed approaches can create a barrier to progress because they are too general and not about the change you trying to make: it is about your unique context

The key is not to apply everything mechanically, but to interpret guidance through the lens of your own context: your building, audience, collection, and community. Tailoring approaches ensure that accessibility becomes meaningful and achievable.  We are not suggesting avoiding toolkits and guidance – we are linking to many throughout these pages.  But do not assume that they will provide all the solutions and answers that you need.  Instead use them as reference and part of your own specific toolbox – you may need several toolkits and resources in your toolbox to ensure you have the correct mix of tools to meet the needs of your work.

Just as every exhibition is unique, so too is every disabled person who may work on making it or come to visit it.  It is important to acknowledge that there is not one perfect way to address access for everyone and the way you build access into your exhibition may be as variable as other aspects of its design, delivery and marketing.  If you can embrace this you may start to naturally think about access earlier.  You may naturally ask yourself ‘how best will we design in access to this exhibition?’ at the very start of the process rather than as an add on at the end. To find out more about this see section 7 ‘Planning for access’.

Misunderstandings around what meaningful access entails often stem from unexamined norms that have shaped the UK exhibitions sector for decades. Many institutions may rely on outdated assumptions, generic checklists, or superficial benchmarks rather than engaging with the lived experiences of disabled people or established best practice. As a result, access is frequently approached through a “one-size-fits-all” approach which we are alerting you to avoid above.

These challenges highlight the need to question the drivers behind any current standards: Who defined them? Whose experiences shaped the expectations of what an exhibition should be? By interrogating these inherited norms and grounding access work in collaboration with disabled practitioners, organisations can move toward more nuanced, flexible, and context-specific approaches that genuinely remove barriers for disabled people.  Some assumptions and perceived standards have grown out of historical contexts or from knowledge in one context being misapplied in another.  For instance when building regulations alone are interpreted as best practice for access or misunderstanding of the law confusing people’s understanding of legal compliance.

Building standards are not access standards

Meeting building regulations (e.g. step-free access, lift dimensions, toilet specifications) does not guarantee meaningful access.  Building regulations may improve over time and help to improve the accessibility of the built environment but we would argue this is not an area to find innovation in practice but rather industry standards that are catching up with the lives of disabled people now.

An accessible doorway does not equal:

• Legible interpretation text.
• Sensory-aware lighting.
• Inclusive narrative framing.
• Clear pre-visit information.

You cannot be fully legally compliant

Legal compliance frameworks such as the Equality Act establish minimum duties, not best practice.   The law is one mechanism that attempts to improve and protect the rights of disabled people but UK law does not provide a prescriptive list of dos and don’ts that you can use to enforce all change in your context or defend your actions by claiming legal compliance.  Only through a challenge in a court of law would the Equality Act determine whether something was accessible enough through deciding if a disabled person had been discriminated against or not with regards to reasonable adjustments made for them.

While the law holds that you should not discriminate against disabled people in your provision of goods and services (access to your exhibition) and employment it cannot tell you exactly how to do this.  What it can do is serve to remind you that you have a pre-emptive duty to think about disabled people and this can help drive the argument for making impactful pre-emptive change.

In the case of publicly funded organisations and bodies there are further duties around the promotion of equality and many organisations have policies and plans connected to this work where you can find examples of approaches.  AIM has created a document full of case studies from across the UK Open Up: Museums for Everyone.

We cannot emphasise enough the need and value of involving disabled people directly in the work that you are doing with, for or about them.  Section 6 ‘How to collaborate with disabled people’ covers some aspects of this in more detail and here we wish to outline the impact if you do not do this at all.  Pitfalls include:

• Designing in exclusionary practice from the very start when you are in fact aiming for inclusion and accessibility
• Increasing the risk of discriminatory actions or processes that further entrench ableist structural issues and make change in the future even more challenging
• Applying knowledge and approaches that are outdated and based on assumptions drawn from past work
• Closing down dialogue, ideas and opportunities before you have even started which immediately limits your ability to make impactful change that will work
• Making the work you are doing harder, costlier and building in the danger that you will need to retrofit change
• Silencing voices and perspectives that can work with you when change is challenged, when budgets are cut and decisions or compromises need to be made – the presence of disabled people will allow you to more effectively make hard decisions and prioritise effectively where choices need to be made
• Perpetuating short-termism rather than strategic structural learning and change

Not taking action is probably one of the biggest challenges.  To expand, there is not an organisation or exhibition that is currently doing nothing about access but not enough is happening. There are not enough new actions being taken to drive the sort of impactful change we would all like to see.  As these pages argue, and support, more actions need to happen to drive structural change.  These pages also outline many reasons why action may not occur.  The challenge is to start the process of change through tangible actions, however small, so that one thing can lead to the next.  Even making a mistake will teach you something that you can learn from but this learning about access is only useful if it leads to further action.

Many organisations invest time in training, research, or consultation but fail to implement changes due to time pressures, competing priorities, or fear of getting things wrong. Prioritising action – even small, incremental steps – builds momentum and demonstrates commitment. Importantly, this action must be informed by ongoing engagement and evaluation, allowing organisations to adapt based on real experience rather than static plans.

If you are feeling stuck return to ‘Key Actions’ (section 2) and look at ‘Planning for Access’ (section 7).  Find one thing you have not tried to apply as an action.