 Tena koutou katoa. Ko te apati taku monga, ko oroa taku awa, ko brise taku hapu, ko nāti pakiha taku iwi, ko Karen Brice taku ingoa. Ki ora. I recently worked at Te Papa as a UX designer in the digital product team. In that time I looked at how to improve accessibility within Te Papa and part of that was looking at how to incorporate NZSL or New Zealand Sign Language into the museum. This presentation is going to cover some of the things that we learnt by integrating NZSL into our projects and also a research workshop that we ran with deaf participants. So why is New Zealand Sign Language important? It's an official language of New Zealand and that means it's recognised and it's written in law. Also Sign Language and Deaf Culture is referenced specifically in the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Article 30. This article also references museums. It's a language and it's a culture. The majority of people who are born deaf and learn NZSL, it's their first language. NZSL is a very different grammar and structure from English. This means that when they try to interpret things like video captions or audio transcripts, it's like trying to understand English as a second language. While captions and transcripts are great for many reasons, providing communication in NZSL is actually the best way to communicate with this community. So what did Te Papa do? What have we done so far? The first project that we looked at was to acknowledge and celebrate New Zealand Sign Language Week in May this year. We told four stories of significant pieces of portraits in toy art. They were interpreted by Theresa Cooper, who is deaf, into NZSL. The stories were published on the Te Papa website and through social media. These are some photos from our process. Originally we planned to film the curators telling the stories about these portraits in English and to have Theresa Cooper then interpreting those stories into NZSL. We had a hearing interpreter standing just off the camera interpreting to Theresa so she could understand what the stories were. We used a steady cam camera rig intended to give this sense of immediacy and intimacy because it was sort of bobbing around a little bit and moving. We had rehearsed the sequences and we thought we were really well prepared. But due to a technical hatch on the day of filming, we had organised for the air con to be turned off but then it automatically turned on and we couldn't switch it off. So therefore it was really noisy and we couldn't film the curators actually talking about the portraits. So what we did was we filmed Theresa Cooper interpreting the stories into NZSL to the camera but she was reading directly off the script and the script had been intended to be read in English by the curators. So this was a little problematic. However we got the filming finished and produced and uploaded on to the website in time for NZSL Week. We knew that it wasn't perfect and we wanted to learn more so we asked for some feedback and we got it. First of all the moving camera was an ONO. It was too distracting so keep the camera still preferably on a tripod. Use a plain background with good contrast to the presenter so that the hands and the face are clearly visible. Facial expressions are really important so good light on the presenter's face is ideal. Plain coloured clothing creates less visual distraction as well. It's best to frame the video as a mid-shot from the waist up. Be really careful not to let the arms or the hands go out of the video shot otherwise it's like having a sentence cut off partway through. And ideally the presenter, the deaf presenter would be supplied with the script and the background information at least the week in advance so they had time to prepare. We didn't do that. The second project that we did was for Pacific sisters again in toy art. This was a video of the Pacific sisters talking about their work and their processes and we wanted to offer an NZSL interpretation of that video. This interpretation was going to be available on demand by the visitors by selecting the appropriate button. In this instance we used a hearing interpreter. We collaborated with an organisation in Australia called Connex U and they work a lot with the Glam sector in Australia to produce sign language videos for those organisations. They've also started working with a lot of New Zealand organisations so we wanted to try working with them and they were great. They were really helpful in helping us to connect with deaf people in New Zealand as well and that really was quite helpful later on when we were organising our workshop with deaf participants. We supplied the original video to Connex U as well as the audio script in a Word document. They filmed the interpreter signing an NZSL, sent the video back to us and we were able to put the composition together ourselves. That helped us keep control which we really liked. Again, we asked for some feedback and we got some different feedback this time. While having sign language interpretation available is really great, ideally the person signing would be a deaf person. This is because a deaf person has learnt NZSL as their first language so they have a unique way of telling the story from a deaf perspective. It also enables visibility of deaf people in the museum so representation is really important. In addition to that, it's really good to allow the option for captions to be turned on and off. Some people find them really helpful and other people find them distracting so it's good to give people the option. So we had all this feedback from these projects but we knew that there was more to learn. We ran an exploratory research workshop to understand the needs and experiences of deaf visitors to the museum. We organised the workshop with representatives from Deaf Aotearoa, Victoria University, Connex U and Arts Access Aotearoa. Most of the people in this workshop were deaf and we had two interpreters. We started with getting people to create their very own journey maps. It was an individual exercise. We wanted to understand everyone's experience of coming to Te Papa and then everyone came together and shared these journey maps as a group. Here's a couple of examples. So this man came to Te Papa to visit the Gallipoli exhibition. He had read a lot about it and he was very excited to come. However, once he got into the exhibition, he realised that a lot of the stories relied on audio and there wasn't the interpretation available. He says, oh, audio stories I tried to hear. I got bits but I missed too much. So while he enjoyed the visual experience of the exhibition, he missed a lot of the storytelling. He felt disappointed he wasn't able to have the full experience like everybody else. Another visitor came to Te Papa with her children. She was looking for a particular art exhibition and she had a little bit of trouble finding it. But once she got there, there was a host that approached her and started to tell her some information about this exhibition. She couldn't understand what the host was saying and the host didn't realise that she was deaf. So it was frustrating for both sides. She felt like she was missing out on some information that she could share with her children. She says here, what are they saying? Is it important? Am I missing some information? She just didn't know. After the journey maps, we had a second part of the workshop which was to create some designs. We posed the challenge to the participants. If you had a magic mobile phone that could do anything and it was going to help you in your journey through Te Papa and the experience of visiting the museum, what could it do? What could make things better? This activity was really good because it helps everyone be creative. But they don't need to understand any kind of design process or worry about technical constraints. We got everyone to share their designs afterwards and it's really valuable to have people explain their designs and thoughts in their own words. Here's a couple of examples. This mobile device is a transparent floating phone. It had a virtual NZSL guide interpreting things in the museum and touring you through the different experiences. The reason it floated was because sometimes holding a phone up all the time is really tiring on the arm. This gave us a really valuable insight about some considerations we should think about the ergonomics of design. It was also able to track where her children were in the museum. This next design was a comprehensive guide with information about everything in Te Papa in NZSL. It had things like being able to discover the facts in Te Papa, a virtual tour guide through the exhibitions, seeing what's on, some helpful information about finding the toilets in the parent's room. The rules of the museum, which is sometimes quite ambiguous, what you can and you can't touch, and really importantly, what to do in an emergency. From the journey maps, we were able to understand some of the core needs for the deaf people in the museum. This one, Access to Audio Information. I need to be able to access any audio content in the museum so I can get the full experience and not feel like I'm missing out. I need to navigate the museum independently because I can't always ask someone. I need to easily understand the rules of the space because so many stories are told using audio. Shared experience. I need to be able to access the same audio content as my family so I can be the educator to my children and have a shared experience together. So this is quite a unique thing to the museum experience at Te Papa where people come to share an experience and easily understand the rules of the space so my kids and I can avoid getting told off. Communicating with staff at the museum can be difficult. So there is now NZSL training available for hosts, which is fantastic, and that should help with future visits from deaf visitors to Te Papa. I prefer seeing other deaf people sign because it looks more natural and they can explain things from a deaf worldview. It also creates a sense of ownership and pride. This was one of the biggest things that we learnt is that it's important for deaf people to be able to tell their stories in their own way. Also representation of deaf people in the museum space is really important. We combined the insights from the journey maps and the magic mobile exercise to create the ideal journey map for a deaf visitor. Interesting enough, when you look at this, it's really nicely to other non-English-speaking visitors. This was presented to internal Te Papa teams and to some representatives from deaf Aotearoa. So we know that there's still a lot to learn, but the biggest thing that we learnt was the importance of engagement with the deaf community when developing outcomes for this audience. These core needs are also relevant to organisations outside the Glam sector, including government services. I personally hope to be able to continue this research and integration in my work at the Service Innovation Lab where I now work. The lab works across multiple government agencies to improve the experience of New Zealanders interacting with government services. Thanks very much.