Smartify App Could Be a Real Game Changer for Access to The Arts for Visually Impaired People

Smartify, a mainstream smartphone app which provides greater access to information about works of art on display in museums and galleries for sighted people, could also be a game changer in access to museums and galleries for blind and partially sighted art lovers too.

Smartify is a UK developed mainstream app that is being used in museums and galleries both in the UK and around the world and when you scan a gallery with Smartify on your phone the app will recognise the work on display and bring up an image of the work that you can zoom into if you have some sight. The app will also display the text that is normally found on the gallery wall about the work of art on your phone too which can be read out with a screen reader.

RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey caught up with Hannah Thompson, Professor of French and Critical Disability Studies from Royal Holloway University of London, who has used the app on a recent museum visit as a partially blind person as well as producing an audio described guide of the University’s picture gallery using the Smartify App.

Hannah began by telling Toby a bit about the background to Smartify, how it works when visiting a museum or gallery as a partially blind person as well as how the audio described tour of Royal Holloway University of London’s picture gallery came about and working on the audio description with students and Smartify.

The audio described tour of the picture gallery at Royal Holloway University of London is up for a Times Heritage Education award for outstanding contribution to equality, diversity, and inclusion.

If you would like to listen to the audio description of the works on display in the Royal Holloway University of London picture gallery do visit the following link - https://smartify.org/tours/audio-descriptive-tour

(Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)