Accessibility and Virtual Exhibitions
By Chartrand, Valerie; Deevy, Jillian; CSUN Technology and Persons With Disabilities Conference - 2004,Publication Date: 2004
Article discusses accessibility issues in the Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), which is an online museum developed by the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN). The VMC aims to educate people about Canada’s rich and diverse heritage in schools and homes by including cooperative efforts between museum professionals, educators, multimedia industry professionals, and others working in the heritage field. In February 2004, the VMC launched a new virtual exhibit called Valentines Day: Love and Romance Through the Ages (http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Valentine). The exhibition consists of a historical guide to Valentine’s Day and its worldwide celebration through museum and archive exhibits from Canada and other countries. One of the main goals of the project was to make it accessible to people with disabilities. Officials from the VMC collaborated with T-Base Communications to provide four main accessibility features: (1) narrative description for Valentine cards, (2) provision of logical mark-up through appropriate use of headings, (3) important fallbacks for JavaScript’s and pop-ups, and (4) appropriate use of style sheets to separate presentation from content. The CHIN was proud to incorporate accessibility into the site’s planning stages, and plans to use this approach in the future to make sure everyone can access VMC exhibits equally.
Published by: Center on Disabilities at CSUN (Website:http://www.csun.edu/cod/)
Link to text: http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2004/proceedings/60.htm
