When my brother and I went to visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (also known as The Met), I wasn’t entirely sure how much of the art I would be able to see. While it may seem odd visiting The Met with visual impairment, I love going to art museums and seeing how the different colors of art blend together and form different shapes, or viewing different features of art up close. As much as I enjoy viewing art with my own four eyes, it’s even more incredible to engage with descriptions that invite me to view art through the eyes of another, and develop a deeper appreciation for the context and skill that go into creating works of art. Here is a list of accessibility resources and strategies for assistive technology access when visiting The Met with visual impairment, a term that is inclusive of blind, low vision, and neurological visual impairment/CVI.
Map of The Met and wayfinding
Before visiting a place for the first time, I find it helpful to look at a map or video tour/virtual tour inside the building so I know how the space is configured and have a general idea of where exhibits or other areas of interest are located. There is a digital/living map on The Met website that provides information on where different exhibits are located, which includes some images of the galleries and numbers for each exhibit. One feature that is really awesome is that users can type in names of exhibits on the living map to get walking directions from one exhibit to another, with the option to avoid stairs.
For visitors with cerebral/cortical visual impairment (also known as CVI) or sensory processing issues, another option that can help with planning routes and visits is to browse the social narratives posted on the accessibility page, which provide information about what to expect when visiting the museum and the characteristics of the environment. The social narratives can also be used along with the My Met Tour visual checklist and sensory friendly map that shows low-stimulation areas. While these resources are designed with autism in mind, they are very helpful for visitors who experience vision fluctuations due to environmental factors (lighting, noise, crowds, temperature, etc.).
Related links
- Museum Maps | Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Social narratives for visiting The Met
- Accessible Maps and Wayfinding Tools For Low Vision
- Tips For Visiting Aquariums With Low Vision
- Disability Accommodations For Fluctuating Eyesight
Free Met tours for visually impaired visitors
The Met offers three different categories of guided tours for visitors with visual impairments. These tours are all free, but require advance registration that can be done by phone or email— contact information is listed on their website.
The Met tour options for visitors are listed under the “Picture This!” section of the visual impairment accessibility menu and include the following:
- Touch Collection: Examine sculptures and various museum items by touch. Tours are available for blind and low vision visitors of all ages, individually or in groups.
- Verbal imaging tours: A museum guide provides a tour while giving detailed verbal descriptions of items in the permanent collection or in an exhibition.
- Guided touch tour: Conducted by a museum educator, visitors explore works of art on display through touch, which is designed with groups in mind.
There are also other free tours of the museum that can provide verbal descriptions of artwork and items on display, but may not go into as much visual detail compared to the accessibility tours.
Related links
- For Visitors Who Are Blind or Partially Sighted | The Met
- Tips For Visiting Art Museums With Low Vision
- Ten Ways Visual Impairment Influenced Classic Artists
Metropolitan Museum of Art audio tours and audio description at The Met
One of the reasons I love visiting art museums so much is the opportunity to listen to audio description and use audio tours to provide context and clarification about art that I’m looking at. The Met Audio Guide offers several audio tours for exploring exhibits and items in the permanent collection, and can be accessed either through the museum’s mobile application or directly from the web browser with no downloads required.
Audio descriptions are written and narrated by curators or special guests at the museum, incorporating in music or other sounds. The curators describe the appearance of the art, along with information about materials used and the history behind the piece. Sometimes, information about the artist and time period is also shared, though this depends on the piece.
Options for exploring The Met audio guide and accessing audio description include:
Accessing audio tours at The Met
As mentioned, audio tours are hosted on The Met website and mobile application— users can connect their personal devices to the free wireless internet hotspot within The Met, but will need to bring their own device and headphones. When I visited The Met, there was a limited amount of handheld assistive listening devices available for free for visually impaired visitors, but they do not appear to be available anymore as of 2025– the audio tour is accessed exclusively through personal devices.
Stop numbers at The Met
Wondering what those numbers are next to an exhibit or on a piece of glass? Stop numbers are associated with audio tracks and transcripts that provide a description and additional context about art on display. To listen to a description, type the stop number into the audio guide search bar.
It’s worth noting there is also an accompanying photo of the art on display that is shown next to the audio track, but this cannot be enlarged or viewed in a full screen mode.
Exhibition playlists
For visitors in a specific gallery, exhibition playlists offer a playlist or continuous audio track of each item on display so that they can listen to uninterrupted audio tracks. Visitors can pause or rewind tracks at any time within the media player.
Spotlight
Spotlight is a long-form narrative track that describes a particular collection item in-depth by sharing varied perspectives and insights about the work as a whole and its context within the museum. A new track in the Spotlight series is released every month.
Themed tours/playlists
Looking for a playlist of the most popular items in the museum’s collection, or a themed list of items within a particular collection? The Met’s audio guide also has a few playlists of exhibit highlights and playlists from prior exhibits that describe items that have been displayed at the museum in the past.
Bonus: Metropolitan Museum of Art podcasts
While these aren’t designed to be listened to inside the museum in the way that the audio guides are, podcasts are an excellent resource for people who love visiting The Met with visual impairment because it is a nonvisual way to engage with art! The Perspectives series also offers video content that provides a deep dive into art history and other art-related topics.
Related links
- Audio Guide | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Perspectives | Articles, Videos, and Podcasts
- How Amazon Alexa Can Help You With Art
- How To Write Alt Text For Amateur Art
- Streaming Audio Description For Performing Arts Videos
How to make items at The Met easier to see
As I mentioned earlier in the post, viewing art and information at a distance often gives me a viewing experience unlike what any of the other visitors see— mostly because I have trouble seeing items far away! Since The Met doesn’t make it super easy to find images of items in their collection that I can enlarge, I’ve used the following strategies to make items at The Met easier to see with low vision so that I have a better idea of what I am looking at:
Take a photo with Google Lens
Google Lens provides users with the option to take a picture of something using their device’s back camera and get information about it. With Google Lens, I can use my phone’s back camera to take a picture of art and reverse-search the image to find a higher resolution image of the item on display.
Browsing The Collection
On the official website for The Met, visitors can view thousands of high-resolution images from the museum’s collection, including images of art that aren’t on public display on The Collection page. Users can also search the collection by artist, culture, gallery, title, and other search filters, though some items may not have high resolution images available due to copyright restrictions.
The Met on Google Arts and Culture
Google Arts and Culture has several high resolution images of items within The Met’s collection, including images of past traveling exhibits. While descriptions can be read with large print and/or text-to-speech, Google Arts and Culture is more for getting close-up views of items rather than descriptions of what items look like— those descriptions are listed in the external collection on The Met website.
Related links
- How I Use Google Lens With Low Vision
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Google Arts and Culture
- Search The Collection
- How To Make Virtual Museums Accessible For Visual Impairments
More resources for visiting The Met with visual impairment
- The Met also offers other programming and special events for visitors with visual impairments such as Seeing Through Drawing and other creative activities that encourage visually impaired visitors to engage in the process of making art. Learn more at Seeing Through Drawing | Met Museum
- Visiting New York City? Check out my other posts on Visiting The Museum of Modern Art With Vision Loss and All About Audio Description For Broadway Plays
- For visitors that are from outside of the Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut), discounted admission is available for guests with a disability. For visitors within the Tri-State area, admission is pay-what-you-can with a 1-cent minimum donation to the museum.
- Wondering how to write descriptions of The Met Gala? Read How To Create Image Descriptions For Red Carpet Looks
Published June 12, 2019. Updated December 2024