01 Context
Museums as Spaces for Connection
As someone in UX, the opportunity to work for SFMOMA was a chance to translate core digital skills to the physical world. My starting point was recognizing museums as a complex system for human connection, that require thoughtful design across multiple channels and touchpoints.
Visitors come together on a free community day to engage with the art of Ruth Asawa. Photo by Barak Shrama.
Just like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a visitor must first feel welcome before they can fully engage, reflect, and connect with the space. If you can't access it, you can't experience it.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, reframed to fit the user journey of visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Framework by Alexis Chew.
02 The Problem
Problem 1: Translations Are Easily Missed
Translations were only available in an online PDF via a QR code at the museum entrance. If visitors missed this single opportunity, they lost access to all content in their preferred language for the rest of their visit.
Problem 2: Any Accessible Content Is Not Easily Available
Screen-reader-compatible text was available only through separate QR codes placed near tactile floor markers, away from the artwork’s wall labels. This separation meant low-vision visitors couldn’t access information directly at the point of interest, and coverage varied across the museum.
Accessing the audio guide required several cumbersome steps – finding the website, navigating it, and manually entering a number into the website.
Getting to the SFMOMA's audio guide is clunky. The accessibility site is hard to find, only available in English, and isn’t compatible with screen readers for visitors with visual impairments.
03 research
Understanding the user journey: "Is my project needed?"
To fully understand the current visitor experience and identify pain points, I employed a mixed-methods approach.
Key Findings: The Problem of Disjointed Access
My research found that the existing accessibility tools were disjointed and complex, creating unnecessary cognitive load and points of failure for visitors.
Observation: Over five hours, with 156 visitor parties observed, behaviors like pointing, gathering, reading, and taking pictures of signs were frequently recorded, signaling confusion and a lack of clear navigation.
I also visited other museums for ideas and best practices.
During a solo field trip, I observed how the San Jose Museum of Art provided artwork information in the city’s three most commonly spoken languages—Spanish, Vietnamese, and English. I found this approach highly commendable, as it underscored the importance of linguistic inclusion.
Audio guide instructions displayed on a wall, both from a distance and up close.
However, museum exhibition designers often express valid concerns about implementing similar multilingual systems, as additional signage can interfere with the visual integrity of exhibitions.
Many emphasize maintaining a clean, uninterrupted art-viewing experience, noting that too much supplementary content can feel cluttered or distracting. Given SFMOMA’s larger scale and frequent exhibition rotations, adopting a comparable solution would be challenging: especially since data from our QR codes shows visitors access content in eight different languages.
Given SFMOMA’s larger scale and frequent exhibition rotations, adopting a comparable solution would be challenging: especially since data from our QR codes shows visitors access content in eight different languages.
After these experiences, I set a new goal for the project – or rather, redefined what “accessibility” meant within its scope.
True accessibility means ensuring independence regardless of ability, language, or familiarity with technology. This new scope defined our focus:
Linguistic Access: Providing wall text in multiple languages.
Sensory Access: Screen-reader compatibility for low-vision guests.
Independent Navigation: Streamlining the audio-guide experience for all
This redefined goal led to a single, critical question:
How can we design a single, seamless system that delivers real-time, multi-layered accessibility – for language, vision, and audio – without compromising the art viewing experience or adding any visual clutter?
04 The solution
The Goal: Invisible Integration
I designed a solution that integrates essential digital content—translations, screen readers, and the audio guide—directly into the physical wall label experience, making it independent, invisible, and instant.
The Pilot: NFC Tap Technology
The pilot program utilized NFC (Near-Field Communication) tap technology—the same technology behind Apple Pay. Discreet NFC chips were integrated into existing wall labels. With a simple tap of a modern smartphone, visitors instantly access three critical resources.
A simple tap connects visitors to a world of accessible art information.
With my proposed implementation, visitors can simply tap the wall label next to the artwork – identical in appearance to a standard museum label – to access information in multiple languages. This action leads to a landing page where users can select their preferred language, all fully compatible with screen readers and equipped with an audio option for enhanced accessibility.
What a visitor would see after tapping an artwork label with their device.
Prototyping and Validation
To validate the interaction and feasibility of the concept, I personally invested in NFC tags and used a low-cost web tool to create a functional landing page prototype. I used this prototype to test the basic single-tap action and flow.
Stakeholder Review: The prototype was reviewed positively, and staff loved the simplicity of the single-tap action. This early validation confirmed that the NFC solution was the most direct and elegant path forward for achieving institutional goals without compromising the art viewing environment.
Visitors simply tap their phone to the label to instantly access the translated content, audio guide, or screen-reader version.
Designing for accessibility doesn’t require compromise.
Physical, digital, and pre-visit moments work best when they’re treated as one connected system. Accessibility thrives within a framework that supports everyone, and it was incredibly rewarding to work on a project that honored SFMOMA’s pillars in a thoughtful, beautiful way.
I’d love to expand this work by connecting it to in-museum activities – interactive games, supplemental learning materials, and other participatory moments – to build a broader, integrated museum experience that feels seamless and engaging from start to finish.
