Team: Manali/ Svaney Shen/ Zhaolu Song
Brief: Design an Autistic children-friendly museum experience of the Science Museum.
Time: August - September
Museum visits
From June to August, we visited five of the most representative museums in London, respectively Imperial War Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Natural History Museum, British Museum and Science Museum.
Museums use many different ways to display exhibits both physically and digitally. They have many interactive gamified exhibits and use projects, speakers to creating a multi-sensory environment.
Physical and digital exhibits in museums.
However, a multi-sensory environment could result in sensory overload for individuals with ASD. Besides, we noticed that all museums provide disabled facilities for people with physical disabilities, but there are no obviously useful resources for people with mental disabilities.
Science Museum
After these visits, we decided to continue our project at the Science Museum. Here are the reasons why we chose it.
1. Children friendly
Science Museum is very children-friendly. Among these museums, only Science Museum provides specific areas for children. They have several children's activity areas, for example, Garden, Pattern Pod and the Wonderland Lab.
2. Interactive and gamified nature
Science Museum provides many interactive and gamified exhibits that are very attractive for children. These are also useful resources facilitating learning experiences for children with ASD.
3. Quiet area
There are some quiet areas in the Science Museum, which can provide a place to rest and prevent children with ASD from feeling sensory overload.
Interview with Lincoln
We had an interview with Lincoln, who is a member of the learning team at the Science Museum. He is responsible for guiding children and families in the Pattern Pod area and providing any support they need.
Interview with Lincoln.
Key findings
Lincoln told us Science Museum has some autism-specific programs, for example, Early Birds and Night Owls. During these sensory-friendly events, Science Museum will adjust operations and/or lower volumes on exhibits to create a quieter environment for people who benefit from visiting the museum free from the hustle and bustle of the general public. Besides, Science Museum also prepares some helpful resources for them, like noise-canceling headphones which people can get from the front desk, a special quiet room for visitors who need a break from all stimuli, etc.
Pattern Pod area is a captivating interactive multisensory area for children (age 3 - 8) to identify the many types of patterns in the world around us and create their own.
When asked about the specific design for people with ASD, one important thing Linclon mentioned was that they don’t allocate a specific section for people with ASD because the museum is inclusive to everyone. I totally agree and I think that designing for people with special needs should not make them feel different from others.
Next
Since the beginning of our project, we have been trying to reach families with children with ASD and organizations for Autisms. We successfully contacted a family with a child with ASD and will conduct an interview soon for more insights.
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