Accessibility

How the National Park Service can provide programmatic access in its interpretive efforts to communicate with people with disabilities is a challenging and complex topic. We all need guidance about how to apply standards and best practices Servicewide.

NPS Accessibility Guidelines

The Programmatic Accessibility Guidelines for National Park Service Interpretive Media is for media specialists, superintendents, and other National Park Service employees and contractors who develop and approve interpretive media. Publications, exhibits, audiovisual programs and tours, wayside exhibits, signage, and web-based media provide park visitors with information and context so that their experience of visiting national parks can be both safe and meaningful. Park visitors who have physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities have legally established civil rights to receive the same information and context that NPS interpretive media products have always provided to their fellow citizens.

View the Accessibility Guidelines

Making Media Accessible

• Tactile Wayside Map Guidelines (June 2008 - 3 pages)
• Large-Print Brochure Templates (January 2009)
• NPS Accessibility Poster (September 2003)

Articles & Evaluations

• Improving Exhibits for Visitors with Disabilities (November 2007 - 37 pages - 5.1 MB)
• Improving Exhibits for Visitors with Disabilities (November 2007 - Microsoft Word - 37 pages - 17.6 MB)
• HFC onMedia Accessibility Issue (November 2007 - 3.9 MB)
• White House Visitor Center Accessibility Evaluation Summary (June 2008 - 15 pages - 1.8 MB)
• White House Visitor Center Accessibility Evaluation Summary (June 2008 - 15 pages - 1.8 MB)
• White House Visitor Center Accessibility Evaluation Report (June 2008 - 6 pages)
• White House Visitor Center Accessibility Evaluation Report (June 2008 - 6 pages)

Frequently Asked Questions

• Accessibility & Audiovisual Media

Accessibility Training Opportunities

Most of our accessibility awareness training is through the National Center on Accessibility:

• Accessibility Training Courses

Related Links

• Architectural Barriers Act Accessibility Standards (ABAAS)
• Audio-Visual Accessibility Initiative for Visitors with Disabilities (Director's Memo 10-20-06)
• Department of Interior Civil Rights Directive 2008-05 (Open Captioning of Audio-Visual Media)
• Disability Access in the National Park Service (Director's Memo 10-24-2006)
• DisabilityInfo.gov
• National Center on Accessibility
• National Park Service Accessibility
• Section 504 – Subpart E – Enforcement of Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Handicap in Programs or Activities Conducted by Dept of Interior
• Section 508 (Electronic and Information Technology Access Standards)
• Service Wide Accessibility Coordinating Committee (SWACC) (NPS INTRAnet only)
• Smithsonian Guidelines for Accessible Exhibition Design
• Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD)

HFC Accessibility Committee Members

• Michele Hartley – HFC Media Accessibility Coordinator, HFC Accessibility Committee Chair, Service Wide Accessibility Coordinating Committee
• Betsy Ehrlich – HFC Accessibility Committee Chair, Representative of exhibit and wayside media
• Abby Aldrich - Representative of Conservation
• Paula Beale - Representative of exhibit media
• Don Branch - Representative of exhibit media
• Tim Elms - Representative of audiovisual equipment
• Paul Koehler - Representative of exhibit media
• Mary Mallen - Representative of Interpretive Planning
• Lori Simmons – Representative of publications media, Service Wide Accessibility Coordinating Committee
• Anne Tubiolo - Representative of audiovisual media

NPS Accessibility Coordinators

• NPS Accessibility Coordinators (April 2009)
• NPS Accessibility Coordinators (April 2009)