Smart and Inclusive Museums for Visitors with Autism: The App Case “A Dip in the Blue”

This paper aims to investigate how digital technologies can make museums ‘smart’ and ‘inclusive’ engaging visitors, especially people with special needs. Adopting a bottom-up approach and a participatory design, this exploratory and qualitative study describes the design and development of a specific App for children with Autism called ‘A dip in the Blue’ of archaeological museum located in Southern Italy (The Archaeological Museum of Paestum and Velia). Starting from a specific toolkit, a paper visual agenda, planned according to a specific format (forms, figures, colours, and emoticons), which made children and their parents to really enjoy the museum environment overcoming the barriers and limits that usually exist for them, the App provides a digital visual agenda and further services and facilities. Thus, after the first visits at the museum, the paper visual agenda became a virtual visual agenda that supports children with Autism and their family, as well as all the young visitors. The App has been designed and developed following all the specific standards and criteria of the Universal Design and considering the specific needs of the special visitors adopting a bottom-up approach, indeed, autistic children were actively involved in the design and development process with their families and all the operators. The paper provides some effective best practices for museums to become smarter and more inclusive through digital technologies and real users’ needs.