This old Polish saying is a brilliant, one-sentence explanation on how to create tailor-made, valuable and high-quality cultural mediation tools for our diverse audiences. In this article, I’d like to highlight the importance of involving representatives of the group for whom you create a cultural mediation tool.
Speaking of tailors
Do you recall the last time you wanted to buy some new clothes or a backpack?
Too small. Sleeves too short. Too few pockets. Too many pockets. Too shiny. Too green. Fits perfectly – but something scratches. Beautiful – but requires hand-washing, for which you don’t have time. Great outfit – but made of polyester, which you avoid because of environmental reasons. Shall I continue?
And now imagine a visit to a tailor’s atelier. He asks what kind of clothes you need, what you’ll use them for, and what your general style is. Then they take the measurements. After some time, you have a tailor’s fitting. And finally, you pick up your dream piece of clothes.
Do you already see the difference?
Ask then act
The effort, time, and cost involved in creating cultural mediation tools and events should result in a sustainable solution that responds to the target group’s needs. Whether it is audio description, tactile, sensory or family trail, immersive experience or any other, you should always ask the users about their opinion and feedback.
A few simple examples will illustrate why, as learned through personal experience (this may differ, depending on the local context).
Case study 1: Audio description
There are many guidelines and trainings available on how to write audio descriptions. However, even experienced authors ask visually impaired consultants to read the script to ensure that everything is clearly written and that no information is missing.
Case study 2: The best hour for workshops/guided tours for different groups
Children with autism: Saturday morning. Children are not tired or overpowered, the traffic is not heavy, and there are not many visitors (yet) in your institution.
Visually impaired visitors: Compromise is difficult to find. Weekday mornings – no, as most of them work or study; weekday afternoons – not the best solution during autumn/winter, as many of them profit from the daylight and remnants of sight to move around the city; weekends – finding someone to assist is challenging.
Case study 3: New ideas
Sometimes, it’s challenging to come up with new and innovative workshop ideas. Asking participants what they’d like to do in the following month resulted in a separate project that even attracted new visitors.
This kind of information you’ll not read in any manual. You learn them only by talking to people. This is how you get to know your audience and their needs better. The knowledge gained by being close to your audiences, you can use a level higher, acting as an advocate for the visitors with special needs. But every knowledge and experience has its limits. There’ll always be something you’re not aware of. That’s why you need experts – representatives of the target group.
Expert, not volunteer
This is a very important piece of information you need to remember. If you engage someone as an expert, this person should receive remuneration. Unfortunately, it is still very common for many organisations and companies to ask people with special needs for professional advice, in the name of ‘making people’s life easier’, for the ‘common good’, for ‘good social impact’, or even for the ‘possibility of cooperating with a prestigious organisation’.
It doesn’t work like this. One Polish influencer, Monika Dubiel, used a simple metaphor: ‘It doesn’t work like this, that a random Polish person you meet on the street will be a great Polish teacher’ and adds: ‘If you hire us as accessibility experts, treat us like experts. In fact, don’t you also pay IT experts and tax-law experts’?
Both quotes come from VIP_team TikTok recording.
Monika Dubiel is a visually impaired person, influencer and accessibility expert.
Ask from the beginning
What is the best moment to start asking questions about whether the mediation tool fits people’s needs and invite the target group representatives to the creative team?
The answer is one: at the very beginning of the process. This is the most efficient and the cheapest solution.
Another simple example. Imagine you’ve just finished the construction of a 50-floor skyscraper. But you forgot about an elevator. Building without an elevator will prevent people from buying apartments there. Adding an elevator will be costly and still leave an impression of being added by force.
To wrap up
It’s admirable that you want to improve your visitors’ experience and consider accessibility features. But remember to engage an expert in the design process. This is what we do in the REACT project, at one of its stages. We support local museums in the development and implementation of cultural mediation tools and tours. Stay tuned – we’ll share the results in the upcoming months!