As part of a transformative project, three Pratt Institute graduate students embarked on redesigning the Rijksmuseum's website to significantly boost its accessibility. This initiative, driven by a commitment to inclusivity, involved meticulous research into Dutch accessibility standards and WCAG recommendations, comprehensive WCAG compliance evaluations, and creative redesign efforts. Through detailed design annotations, innovative proposal development, and dynamic prototyping, the team aims to present a final project that not only meets but surpasses accessibility standards, ensuring that everyone can fully engage with the cultural treasures of the Rijksmuseum.
April - May 2023
Accessibility Audits
UX Designer
UI Designer
Prototyping
Figma, Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, Zoom, Google Presentation, Adobe Photoshop
Despite the Rijksmuseum's commitment to physical accessibility, our investigation reveals that its website falls short of the comprehensive accessibility standards mandated by the Dutch government for public cultural institutions. These standards emphasize a user-friendly, accessible, well-designed, and easily discoverable web presence. Our aim is to scrutinize whether the Rijksmuseum's website meets these essential criteria and to identify opportunities for improving the digital experience for all users, ensuring that the museum's virtual offerings are as inclusive and accessible as its physical venue.
Determine WCAG compliance
Understand accessibility in the Netherlands
Evaluate issues other than WCAG compliance
Annotate current website
Propose website redesign to address accessibility issues
Annotate proposed redesign
After assessing WCAG compliance to determine the accessibility issues, we did a design annotation of the current website. The four pages that were inspected failed multiple WCAG accessibility standards. We found a total of 32 accessibility issues on the current website. Based on 4 major usability issues identified, we designed potential solutions for the following problems: website navigation, visual design & imagery, and interactivity of media.
It is difficult to understand the navigation because it does not behave predictably. For consistent and simple web page navigation, there is no logo with a homepage link. Limitations in the visual design prevent achieving the required contrast ratio for readability.
The redesign uses the logo as a home button to appear on every page and makes the top navigation constant across all pages. The back button is replaced by breadcrumbs. By providing a solid background for the navigation, the redesign raises the contrast ratio for the text.
The hamburger menu was not in intuitive tab order with some items duplicating top menu items. Some pages had no top navigation menu, and was redundant for all users including those who use screen readers.
The hamburger menu is removed. For easier navigation and better site structure understanding, significant categories are added to the top menu and a site map to the footer.
The visual design and imagery are an obstacle to perception. Poor contrast ratio for readability is brought on by text on images. The distracting animation has no option for pausing or stopping.
The redesign suggests increasing the contrast ratio by utilizing a solid background to make the text easier to read. It uses only relevant media, replacing animation with static images and providing a transcript with video content.
Since there isn’t much white space, the content layout encourages in tiresome scrolling, and animated images of artwork arranged in a grid zoom in and out for decorative purposes only.
The redesign uses more white space which is especially important for the users with disabilities. It has a two-column grid to reduce scrolling, making it easier for users with physical disabilities.
The interactive elements did not operate in a consistent manner since the hero image was not consistently linked to relevant content and did not signal a hot spot.
The redesign’s interactive features include clearly labeled buttons that open predetermined related content, and the removal of any image links but the addition of image alt text.
This project offered an insightful exploration into the realm of accessibility, juxtaposing American and international standards, and revealing where the Rijksmuseum's website falls short against WCAG criteria. While the physical museum excels in accessibility, the website's limitations highlighted the necessity of considering diverse user needs.
I learned that assessing a website's accessibility without considering the specific requirements of different disability groups could lead to an incomplete evaluation. The complexity of diverse user needs emphasizes the importance of targeted accessibility assessments. My experience, influenced by my own deafness, underscored the challenge of adopting a universally inclusive approach to design.
This journey not only deepened my understanding of accessibility challenges but also fueled my passion for creating inclusive designs. It has shown me the vast potential for improvement in museum user experiences through further research and application of comprehensive accessibility standards.