ReDiscover

Accessible information for the Eden Project

The Sensory Trust has recently completed an exciting project with the Eden Project, largely based on accessible information.

Eden was awarded a grant from the ReDiscover fund which was a joint venture between the Millennium Commission, Wellcome Foundation and Wolfson Trust.
The grant was awarded to develop new exhibits, breathe new life into old exhibits (due to a higher visitor number than first expected), and create exciting information resources that would allow people to get as much information as they wanted. It was a tall order and Eden worked with many people to make it possible, artists, scientists, teachers, designers, everyone pooling their expertise to create something for everyone, to begin to communicate some of the issues we face today.

The project looked at complicated subjects like GM crops and Intellectual property rights; these are communicated through a multimedia theatre involving puppets and CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). The ideas of climate change, water use and biodiversity are questioned in exhibits in the Core. An arcade of ideas lets your mind wander while you play on exhibits discovering what it is like to be a plant and survive, how do you eat and drink when you rooted to the ground? Or where does your breakfast come from? And how many food miles would it take to make Elvis’ favourite pizza?

Locker Room Lives. One of the exhibits in the Core at Eden.

The exhibits and theatre certainly give you a lot to think about and a good source of information are the diversity packs Sensory Trust developed as part of this project. We wanted to create a resource that would encompass all the aspects of the exhibits, providing enough of an understanding for visitors to enable them to know more about the issues, and curious to go out and find out more, especially how their decisions impact on these very issues. It was therefore very important to make the information available to the widest possible audience.

We started by looking at what was on offer both at Eden and other places. We quickly realised that we had an exciting opportunity to develop a resource that could be used as an exemplar project, and set a precedent for all of Eden’s future information. When Eden set out on the ReDiscover project it was determined to ensure that the project brings science issues, ideas and ethics alive using humour, charm and honesty to engage all ages, abilities and a wide range of interest groups. The project is about science and its relevance to people’s everyday lives. It was important none of that was lost in the information and translations.

Rediscover English cover

Rediscover French cover

Rediscover German cover

Through consultation and experience we decided to create the information in eight versions; Standard, Easy English, Braille, Large Print with image descriptions, Widgit, French, German and Japanese. The Braille was developed in collaboration with the RNIB. We also worked with Cate Detheridge from Widgit (a pictorial language for people with learning disabilities). Cate translated the packs into Widgit in both a full symbol version and a symbol supported set and even developed some activity packs to accompany the packs. If you would like to know more about Widgits please follow the link below to the Widgit website.

The Diversity packs were designed to be both hard copies for the Eden site and down loads from the Web. We have worked with a wide range of people to create the packs and are very pleased with the results. The Packs can be found in the café in the Core or at the Eden Access desk in the Visitor Centre. They can be downloaded from the Eden and Sensory Trust websites

We hope that what we have developed is an exciting and informative resource that carries with it the humour, charm and honesty Eden wanted, and through doing so demonstrate what inclusive design can be, a creative design approach allowing access to the widest possible audience.

We are pleased with how the project went and learnt a lot along the way, but when it comes to accessible information in particular we know there is still a lot of work to be done. We were delighted to be awarded a grant from the Big Lottery Fund to carry out an extensive project on accessible information and we would welcome any feedback you may have on the ReDiscover resources for Eden to help us inform future information projects.

You can send feedback through our website at enquiries@SensoryTrust.org.uk