Museum access and experience

The National Tramway Museum, Crich Tramway Village

Sensory Trust recently completed an access and visitor experience survey at the National Tramway Museum in Crich in Derbyshire. The museum already offers a high level of accessibility, notably with the wheelchair-accessible tram which travels the length of the site, and is a popular attraction for people with disabilities, so the report was designed to build on the high standards already achieved by museum staff and volunteers.

We undertook a number of site inspections and consultation sessions with selected groups of visitors over a period from March to June 2008. The aims for the research were to:

Identify barriers to access for people with a range of disabilities
Identify opportunities to improve the visitor experience for all visitors, but with an emphasis on the sensory experience especially for people with disabilities

Sensory Trust reviewed three main areas of the site:

The Village outdoor environment
The indoor museum buildings and exhibits
The Woodland Park

We garnered a wealth of feedback from formal consultation sessions held on site and informal conversations with disabled visitors, their carers or those visiting with them. We combined that with Sensory Trust’s knowledge of access and experience issues gained from work on inclusive environments throughout the UK with organisations such as the National Trust and the Eden Project to create a report with a comprehensive list of recommendations for improvements to the museum. The suggestions covered a wide range of areas including organisational practice, wayfinding, information and interpretation, and physical access.

Members of the Seeing Aloud group on the easy access route

The topography of the site and its layout meant that the variety of access issues was as wide as the range of sensory experiences the site offered. The report suggested improvements to access and quality of experience in all areas of the museum. To make sense of the list of suggestions, Sensory Trust structured the detailed report around the three geographical areas listed above. In addition to this report we provided an Excel file that contained the recommendations and could be filtered by priority, timescale or cost.

Consultation

Consultation took place with disabled people and with individuals who planned and assisted on days out for people with a range of disabilities from a number of organisations and schools. Individuals were also interviewed to investigate their general experiences of bringing groups to the museum and to similar locations in the area. By talking to people that were familiar with a range of disabilities the consultation looked at a wide variety of needs and challenges, a wider range than would have been achieved had the groups consisted of individuals with specific issues. This approach to consultation is also a useful first step in developing relationships with local groups who are in a position to give ongoing feedback, something that is particularly important when a programme of access improvements is planned.

Sensory Trust in action examining physical access

As is to be expected when consulting with people with experience of a range of disabilities the findings from the consultation were wide-ranging; from physical access issues through to visitor experience.

It is hoped that the report will help secure future funding for more improvements to the visitor experience of the museum in the coming years.

We would like to thank again the individuals we consulted with from the following groups and organisations:

Age Concern
Holbrook Centre for Autism
Atherton Park Community School
Belper Social Club for the Disabled
Holymoorside United Reform Church
South Nottingham College
Hearing Dogs for the Deaf
Seeing Aloud steering group