Author: Paula Cafiero

Event- Inclusive Design 24

The event I attended is an online event on web accessibility called the Inclusive Design 24 conference. It was the 5th annual ID24, which is a 24-hour live stream international event where different topics were discussed from October 10th to October 11th. I did not watch the full 24 hours, but I was able to catch some of the talks and have gone back to watch more of it since, as they were streamed and saved on YouTube. This seemed like an important event to partake in, as it is relevant to a few of my projects this semester (including my final paper for this class) as well as is a good event for everyone in the information profession to view as it provides new ideas and thoughts on the state of web accessibility. It is also a unique event because the 24 hours of streaming allows it to include numerous international voices which can often not be included in events or conferences that require physical attendance, especially for the disability community. This allows every type of person to participate in the event through presenting or watching the hours of content, without being required to travel. Additionally, because this is the 5th year of this event, it operates relatively fluidly, and the people involved seem excited by the conversation and size of the event. Everyone presenting was very happy to be representing an organization or be an expert in the field to share their insights and ideas on the issues.

What they are trying to do is not limit creativity of web design but encourage people to take into consideration a whole bunch of different disabilities, so the internet feels like a place of inclusion and equality, and helps people participating in the medium instead of discouraging them. This event also coincided nicely with our readings also discussed on October 10th on user centered design/ design justice, showing how an inclusive thought process can be implemented in the real-world practice of creation. Making everything high contrast (though high contrast is not the same for everyone) and sites easy to click is beneficial for not only low vision users, but to those users on the website outside in the sunlight. Taking into account who has access, and the value of making things accessible in a sensory way but also where connection is limited. The group is trying to connect all people, whatever circumstance, every way they can for the future.

While the event itself seemed low budget with some questionable connection and presentations at times, and I am not sure most people would actually commit to watching 24 hours of this all at once, but it was a very global event, and is an attempt to connect and take into consideration numerous types of technology consumers. There were different college groups who watched at various times, and a decent amount of twitter engagement. The hashtag #ID24, was used throughout the event, and the tweets were positive, and there is the ability to communicate with what the speakers were talking about.

The most important lesson I think I took from the event is that you are not creating an experience (even though the word user experience implies exactly that) your creating an environment for people to experience. Whether it is entirely usable at face value to the user, or if they can easily adapt and add to it (i.e. screen readers, different methods of selecting content, inverted colors or customized high contrast settings) to make it personalized and accessible, the structure of what your creating is the environment. In terms of accessibility, they also emphasized that the basics are what gets overlooked a lot of times in web design and that is what leaves people behind. Web designers often skip over the basic structure of a website, like the html, which is really where most of the accessible adaptations take place, because the websites personal style does not matter as much as the content if some sort of adapter is going to alter the style anyway.

The underlying theme is that people care about accessibility, but it is a big undertaking for people that do not know how to go about implementing components into their design. People know they are excluding people, but it is hard to start the process of designing better. They discussed a lot of different topics, from high contrast mode, accessible online payments, WordPress, the list goes on and on within the 24 hours of content.  

When thinking about the readings this semester, it goes back to design justice. They are very good at pointing out what does not work and why a lot of the websites out there are poorly designed for accessibility. Additionally, there is not one right solution for everyone, but there are things that can make it better for everyone. The more control the user in some of the design choices, like contrast and color, that might be a better solution then designing one website to fit everyone’s needs from the moment they type in the URL.

This event gives a lot of voices of the disabled design community a larger platform of which to speak. As Costanza-Chock writes,

The key lessons include: involving members of the community that is most directly affected by the issue that you are focusing on is crucial, both because it’s ethical, and also because the tacit and experiential knowledge of community members is sure to produce ideas, approaches and innovations that a non-member of the community would be very unlikely to come up with. It is also possible to create formal community accountability mechanisms in design processes (Costanza-Chock 9).

There is a lot still to be done in creating a web that is designed with all people in mind, hence this event has been occurring for the past 5 years, and likely as computer technology changes there will always be more things to discuss when it comes to designing content for inclusivity. It seems likely this event will continue for years to come bringing about new thoughts, ideas and innovations in web accessibility.

Bibliography

Costanza-Chock, Sasha. Design Justice: Towards an Intersectional Feminist Framework for Design Theory and Practice. pp 1-14.

https://inclusivedesign24.org/2018/

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Observation: Brooklyn Museum

For my observation, I spent time watching and exploring the Brooklyn Museum. I have had to do many museum observations this semester as part of the Museums and Digital Culture program. It made the most sense for me to observe a museum, and specifically this one for longer, for the purpose of this assignment, because I have seen the evolution of this institution over many years. I observed the exhibits on Sunday mid-morning October 7th, which was potentially not the best day to go, because the museum itself was relatively empty at that time.

Growing up, I frequently attended the Brooklyn Museum, and the permanent collections remained relatively stagnant throughout the early 2000s. For years, they seemingly did not evolve or make much attempt at relevancy, in my opinion, including topical themes and creating much personal interest. I do not remember seeing many of their temporary exhibits, but their permanent collection did not use the space to its fullest. Following the redesign of the front of the museum, much of the culture has changed, and there were several people near the front of the building, as a hangout location and not so much to view the cultural institution. Recently the interior content of the museum has become increasingly socially conscious and they are clearly working on finding their voice in the greater New York art scene, while changing their curation of their permanent collection so the context of the pieces has been evolving with the space. The museum itself is experimenting with what kind of audience is wants to attract and what kind art it wants to display to be relevant, different and attractive to the wider audience, and brining people in past the outdoor seats.

The pieces I remember seeing growing up are mostly still on display, but they have become almost a scavenger hunt because their locations have moved around, and they are being curated differently with new works surrounding them to change the conversation. As Cloonan writes, “Artifacts may shed light on the past, yet when these cultural remnants are placed into contemporary context something new is created,” (Cloonan 231). They have given new context to their work surrounding new themes, in this current climate to bring out new meaning to the work. As a temporary exhibit, they have “Float” is an interesting molten glass works mixed amongst the permanent collection on the American Art floor, offers a level of intrigue and surround much older work sometimes with words that correlate with the older art.

In terms of difficult heritage, they have chosen to highlight a lot of political art topics to display, and more importantly create a conversation about. Two of their temporary collections that really stand out as making a statement on difficult heritage are the “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” and “Half of the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection.” They are using art to display difficult moments in American history, which are still relevant in today’s political climate, and spark conversation. It should be noted however that these exhibits were not incredibly loud in terms of discussion, possibly because while most people were there alone or in groups of two, there was not enough people in the space to facilitate conversation amongst friends. For the most part people seemed very reflective. One example of this is The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, which over the past 10 years or so now has created a whole feminist wing surrounding this piece, and an increasing focus on feminist art across the museum, when it used to be just this piece was the focal point of feminism in the Brooklyn Museum. The room housing The Dinner Party, there was only a group of two in there at the same time as myself, and it was very quiet, no one seemed to want to make any noise when viewing the pieces, likely because the walls are dark, and there is so much to see, that the conversation seemed to mostly occur outside of the space. The two temporary exhibits, the feminist wing, the American art floor and the restaurant were the most crowded for the Sunday morning. Granted, no room I went into could be considered crowded (there was plenty of walking and viewing space surrounding the wall text and images), but the other floors had hardly any foot traffic. I also did not stumble upon any walking tour groups, and I did not see many docents and museum staff, especially once in the gallery space after the front lobby where you get tickets and such. However, compared to the other floors and rooms which have very few people, the temporary and more relevant artworks were the most visited.

It is of note as well that I was there the morning after their big first Saturday event (almost always a well-attended monthly event for the museum) and a week too early for their Syrian Refugee exhibit, which obviously is very topical, in comparing Syrian refugees from the past to the present through art, and is definitely a reason to go back to the museum when I have more time, but also possibly a reason there were not as many people on the day that I went because they were timing their visits for events and certain exhibits.

Their archiving system is very open, you can observe much of the process just by being in the exhibits. In the Egyptian Art section for example, while I did not see any archivists or curators actively working at least within the public exhibit (again likely due to the time and day I was observing and exploring) but in one room there was a  relatively large area sectioned off, which was not entirely hidden, where they were clearly redoing a portion of the exhibit, and presumably getting ready to add the pieces some of which were on the tables to the display in the coming days. Their actual archives are also currently mostly closed to the public, but they have visual storage behind glass doors you can see through. There weren’t as many docent staff at work when I went there, it seemed mostly security guard and people in charge of the front of house activity, yet with the very open collection side of the museum, it is apparent that a lot of work is being done, just not as much on the volunteer/educational side of the museum, especially during one of their presumably slower hours.

Bibliography

Cloonan, Michèle Valerie. “W(H)ITHER Preservation?” The Library Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 2, 2001, pp. 231-242.

Macdonald, Sharon. “Is ‘Difficult Heritage’ Still ‘Difficult’?: Why Public Acknowledgement of Past Perpetration May No Longer Be So Unsettling to Collective Identities.” Museum International, pp. 265-268.

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/ 

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