Unseen City Canvases: Exploring Blind and Low Vision People's Perspectives on Urban and Public Art Accessibility

Abstract

Public art can hold cultural, social, political, and aesthetic significance, enriching urban environments and promoting well-being. However, a majority of urban art is inaccessible to blind and low vision (BLV) people. Most art access research has focused on private and curated settings (e.g., museums, galleries) and most urban access work has centered on outdoor navigation, leaving urban and public art accessibility largely understudied. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 BLV participants, using design probes featuring AI-generated descriptions and real-time AI interactions to investigate preferences for both discovering and engaging with urban art. We found that BLV people valued spontaneous art exploration, multisensory (e.g., tactile, auditory, olfactory) engagement, and detailed descriptions of culturally significant artwork. Participants also highlighted challenges distinct to urban art contexts: safety took precedence over art exploration, multisensory access measures could be disruptive to others in the public space, and inaccurate AI descriptions could lead to cultural erasure. Our contributions include empirical insights on BLV preferences for urban art discovery and engagement, seven design dimensions for public art access solutions, and implications for expanding HCI urban accessibility research beyond navigation.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: A visual illustration of our design space, drawing from knight2008publiczebracki2013beyondhenrich2014case. Artwork type is indicated by color (red = mural, green = mosaic, blue = sculpture). Larger artwork images are in \ref{['fig:probes']}.
• Figure 2: Artwork probes from the design exploration listed in the order in which they were presented to participants. Captions are paraphrased from the AI-generated short descriptions and highlight type, location, and cultural elements if relevant.
• Figure 3: An intricate sculptural fountain featuring mermaids, frogs, and turtles, located in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, CA. (Andrea’s Fountain - Ruth Asawa)
• Figure 4: A visitor stands before a 34-foot tall totem pole at an Indian Cultural Center. (John T. Williams Memorial Totem Pole - Rick L. Williams)
• Figure 5: A wall plastered with chewed gum, which is a popular tourist attraction in Seattle, WA. (The Gum Wall)