Developing inclusive museums: the role of personalization: A research on the impact of personalized educational products and services on museums‟ movement towards inclusion

The mandate of a more inclusive museum able to respond to its diverse public constitutes the cornerstone of this research. At a time when expectations on service quality are rising, museums are being challenged to redesign their experiences and reposition their audiences‟ expectations and needs at the center of their operational actions. Throughout this century, museums have made thoughtful efforts to become inclusive organizations in response to their social mission as public funding institutions, although there is still way ahead. The creation of inclusive educational programs can be seen as the opportunity to museums‟ movement towards inclusion. In this context, this paper proposes that a personalized approach around their educational products can contribute to this goal. The research aims to act as an explanatory study on how museums can exploit the creation of personalized educational products and services through digital means to meet the growing needs of their diverse audience and become more inclusive institutions. For the sake of this research, eleven experts in the museum field were selected and then interviewed. The data analysis was based on the conceptual framework that was formulated according to the literature on the field of inclusivity and personalization. The analyses of the expert interviews revealed that experts are interested for the creation of personalized educational products as an opportunity to make the museum experience more personal and accessible to the diverse audience.