Abstract:

The museum should be a cultural and socializing space for everyone, a place of culture that recognizes its “audiences” multiple opportunities for involvement in diversified and multisensory experiences. An accessible and inclusive social and cultural space that is inspired by the demands of Universal Design, a design model that pays attention to the means and ways in which the physical and immaterial good of all becomes usable and accessible for all to respond to a plethora of needs expressed by users with and without disability.
Didactic-museum experiences should necessarily commit educational research to promote experiences of universal and quality enjoyment. The museum plays a significant role in strengthening cultural profiles and in addressing creativity and divergent thinking (Muscarà and Romano, 2020; Poce, 2017) and, therefore, particular attention must be paid to museum education (Grassi, 2015), i.e., how it proposes scenarios, issues, new visions for the promotion of a qualitatively relevant and challenging museum education for everyone.
The museum should become a cultural context designed to universally interact with everyone, a responsive museum that becomes a cultural and socializing space for everyone, which gives its users opportunities for involvement in diversified and multisensory experiences (Zanato Orlandini, 2017).
The implementation of institutional requests such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN, 2006) (articles 30 and 9), the World Report on Disability (WHO, 2011), the Guidelines for overcoming architectural barriers in places of cultural interest, issued by the MIBACT in 2008, of the Recommendations relating to accessibility to museums, monuments, areas and archeology, with which in 2015 the MIBACT again outlines a general framework with operational indications for a wider use of cultural heritage, favoring an "improvement" logic over an "adaptation" logic. In 2017, the publication Cultural heritage for all. Usability, recognizability, accessibility, with which some projects carried out by the Directorate General of Museums are presented and, in 2018, the drafting of the guidelines on the Plan for the Elimination of Architectural Barriers (P.E.B.A.) indicate the principles of Universal Design as the reference framework to rethink the contexts of design and communication of cultural heritage.
According to a user perception perspective, the contribution discusses some results of a cognitive path on the level of accessibility of the services and exhibitions of the MArTA archaeological museum in Taranto, presenting some proposals for improvement and development of the inclusion and accessibility shared in the advice developed by the experts of the University of Salento.
Through a multiple-choice questionnaire and a broader reading of data, including qualitative data received from the analysis of specific interviews addressed to a sample of 116 visitors, it was possible to trace and describe the accessibility plan relating to the MArTA museum according to a user perspective perception.
One of the results attributable to this work is that of having implemented a real participatory planning between work groups and stakeholders, urging an interdisciplinary dialogue and a process of accountability that affects everyone.

Keywords:

Accessibility, Inclusion, Museum, Universal Design, Disability.