A close-up of small hands with medium skin tone touching the snout of a black helmet in the shape of a stylized hound or dog with bared teeth. The hands touch the open mouth with four massive sharp teeth, and the wrinkled nose as if the armored mask is in mid snarl. The rest of the mask is made of angular plates that extend down the neck. A blurry label with print and Braille and a tactile QR code is partially visible near the edge of the table.

PAC helped Museum of the Moving Image build inclusive design capacity through staff training and a working group, then supported community-led prototyping that produced nine accessible touch objects and a recurring monthly touch experience program.

Media

A close-up of a white movie production clapperboard/slate on a light surface. On the slate, the printed label "PRODUCTION" appears on the left, with handwritten text reading "PAC MEETING" across the top field. Below, the slate fields show handwritten numbers: Roll 2, Scene 3, Shot 1, and Take 1. Farther down are printed labels including "DIRECTOR," "CAMERAMAN," and "DATE," with the date handwritten as "6/4/23." The hinged top clapstick is black with diagonal color bands in green, yellow, blue, red, white, and gray. Some marker smudges and partial writing are visible on the right side.
An indoor lecture or conference space with a textured gray ceiling, circular ceiling lights, air vents, and a ceiling-mounted projector. Rows of white chairs and desks are arranged across a glossy white floor. Several attendees are seated, some using laptops or looking toward the front of the room, while a camera operator stands near the right side with filming equipment. Dark curtains with thin colored line patterns cover the walls, and a laptop screen in the foreground appears to show a presentation slide.
An indoor lecture or conference space with rows of white chairs and desks are arranged across a glossy white floor. The attendees are a mix of genders and races with light to medium dark skin tones, wearing business casual clothing. Several attendees are seated, some using laptops or looking toward the front of the room, while a camera operator stands near the right side with filming equipment. The room has a textured gray ceiling, circular ceiling lights, air vents, and a ceiling-mounted projector. Dark curtains with thin colored line patterns cover the walls, and a laptop screen in the foreground appears to show a presentation slide.
A close, angled view of thick gray block letters mounted on a white textured wall spelling the word, "WOMEN." Below the sign, a blurred hand with light skin tone touches Braille with the Blue Bob wheelchair access symbol below the Braille.
Three people sit at a table enthralled in touching muppet materials. Starting on our left, Robin Marquis, a white nonbinary femme holds a yellow and pink feather with their mouth pursed in mid squeal, in the middle, Maria Braswell, a white woman pulls out a shaggy brown piece of faux fur from a bag of other similar materials, on our far right, a MoMI staff member with light skin tone looks at Robin and Maria laughing. The table is covered with plastic sheets, loose feathers, 3D printed objects, a water bottle, and a laptop.
A close-up, overhead view of Robin Marquis, a non binary white femme, laying face down, their eyes closed, on a pile of multi color and textured muppet fur. The synthetic fur ranges in textures and color; short and soft red, long and shaggy reddish brown, short and messy lilac, deep fuzzy purple, and matted aqua green, spread across a pale background. Robin is wearing a bold blue, teal, black, and yellow patterned blazer and have their straight blond hair pulled in a high bun.
A table viewed from above, with several movie related objects with labels and QR codes arranged on a dark surface. The items are laid out along the top and bottom of the table with labels underneath in both print and Braille next to a tactile QR code that says Scan for Description in printed text and Braille. Starting at the bottom edge of the table, on our left, are colorful muppet crafting materials, including shaggy orange fur, pale purple feathers, and foam blocks. In the midle is a reddish-brown molded head labeled "Hannibal Lecter Stunt Head." On our right is a large vintage Bell and Howard Film Projector. On the other side of the table are a row of vintage film devices, including a Canon Autozoom Super 8 camera.
Kate Kita, a white woman with light skin tone, and Nefertiti Matos Olivares, a Latina woman with medium skin tone, interact with a touch table. In the foreground on our left is the back of a dark metallic helmet or armor piece with rivets, and pointed flanges or ears. On our right, Nefertiti touches something out of frame, a large smile on her face, her eyes closed, and a small earbud peeking out of a multicolored striped knit beanie. Behind them, Katie is softly out of focus, looking down toward the object with a slight smile on her face. The background is mostly dark with blurred screens or light sources.
Nefertiti Matos Olivares, a Latina woman with medium skin tone, leaning over a table and smiling wide with her mouth open, her eyes closed, as he touches long orange fur and a purple ostrich feather. The table also has short brown fur, foam blocks and a tactile QR code near the edge. Nefertiti is wearing a colorful striped knit beanie, a dark shirt, and a blue floral outer shirt with bright pink and orange flowers. A white earbud peeks out of one ear. The background is a dark exhibition space, with dark walls, red seating, and warm lighting.

Project Description

Museums that want to become more inclusive often face the same early challenge: they know change is needed, but they may not yet have the internal language, structure, or confidence to pursue that change consistently. The Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) came to Prime Access Consulting at exactly that moment. With a significant redesign on the horizon, the Queens-based museum wanted to move forward with intention, building the internal capacity to welcome broader audiences before the work of physical and programmatic transformation began in earnest.

PAC’s work with MoMI began as a capacity-building engagement and grew into a more focused exploration of touch as an interpretive tool. Across both phases, the goal was not simply to identify accessibility barriers, but to help the museum develop the internal practices, community relationships, and design processes needed to address those barriers over time.

Capacity Building

PAC’s engagement started with the Practice of Inclusion Workshop Series, delivered across two in-person visits to the museum. The series pairs instructional content with in-gallery design conversations, so staff are not only learning inclusive design concepts in the abstract, but applying them directly to MoMI’s own spaces, programs, and visitor experiences.

The workshops span the full scope of inclusive design practice, including content development, graphic design, digital access, the physical environment, interpretation, public programs, and organizational decision-making. They are structured to engage staff across departments and at multiple levels of responsibility, because inclusive design cannot be sustained by one department alone.

Working in MoMI’s own galleries made the learning tangible. In-gallery activities prompted staff to move through familiar spaces with an inclusive design lens, surfacing and challenging assumptions. What is available for a blind or low vision visitor to do, touch, or learn from? How is directional and interpretive information presented? What happens when a visitor with a cognitive or sensory disability encounters a label written at a high reading level, mounted at an uncomfortable height, or positioned in a visually complex environment? These are not abstract questions. Moving through the galleries with them in mind produces concrete answers, and those answers drive the work.

Between visits, coaching hours, and remote sessions kept the work moving, giving staff space to ask questions and work through challenges as they arose. This continuity matters. Inclusive design capacity is not built in a single workshop. It develops through repeated application, feedback, refinement, and shared accountability over time. The remote sessions allowed MoMI’s team to bring specific problems to PAC as they encountered them, connecting instruction to practice in real time.

The final visit ended with the launch of an Inclusive Design Working Group, an internal team tasked with sustaining the work beyond PAC’s direct involvement. The working group distributes responsibility across the institution, helping ensure that inclusive design is not siloed within a single department or dependent on any one person to keep it moving. For a museum in the early stages of building this practice, that internal structure is as important as any individual deliverable.

Touch as an Interpretive Tool

That foundation set the stage for a more focused second phase: a grant-funded pilot project exploring touch as an interpretive tool. Touch experiences offer something few other museum strategies can match. They give blind and low vision visitors direct and meaningful access to objects, and they invite all visitors into a more embodied relationship with a collection.

Getting touch experiences right, however, requires more than selecting objects and placing them on a table. It requires a dedicated design process, institutional care, and meaningful community involvement. Touch objects need to be selected for interpretive value, tactile legibility, durability, safety, and visitor interest. They also need to be supported by context, description, labeling, and facilitation so that touch becomes part of the interpretive experience rather than an isolated accommodation.

PAC helped MoMI build a Disability Community Advisory Group to be involved in the prototyping from the start. PAC’s work included advising on how to identify and recruit members, creating meaningful compensation structures, developing feedback mechanisms that keep community input in the decision loop, and building the kind of trust that institutions often struggle to establish with communities they have historically underserved. PAC also helped design and facilitate the prototyping sessions themselves, which spanned two rounds with iteration in between.

The nine objects that emerged from that process, including a Hannibal Lecter stunt mask, Muppet construction materials, a Hound’s Helm from Game of Thrones, and a Bell and Howell 8mm projector, were selected and refined based on what participants told the team they found meaningful, legible, engaging, and worth returning to. Each object is supported by Braille labels, tactile QR codes, and guided tactile descriptions housed on an accessible microsite, giving visitors the context they need to engage independently.

Those prototyping sessions have since become a monthly touch experience program, open to community members on a recurring basis. The program keeps MoMI in direct relationship with the audiences it is working to serve while continuing to build the internal knowledge and confidence that the earlier capacity-building work began.

The longer goal is integration: bringing tactility into the galleries in a more prominent and embedded way. The touch program is how the team gets there, one session at a time. It creates a structured path from training, to prototyping, to community feedback, to recurring public engagement, and eventually to more permanent, inclusive design interventions throughout the museum.

Concluding Thoughts

MoMI’s approach is a clear example of what it looks like to start small and move with care. Capacity before projects. Community before objects. Iteration before permanence. That sequence matters, and the program it produced reflects it.

By beginning with staff learning and institutional structure, then moving into community-led prototyping and recurring touch experiences, MoMI is building more than a single accessibility initiative. It is building the conditions for inclusive design to become part of how the museum thinks, plans, tests, and welcomes people over time.