Common Ground: The Putnam equalizes science exhibit access
The Putnam Museum and Science Center leverages AI formatting and shake-to-encode to quickly make a large exhibit broadly accessible.
At a glance
- Institution: Putnam Museum and Science Center
- Location: Davenport, IA
- Segment: Science museums
- Exhibitions: Common Ground
- Audiences: Non-English speaking, seniors, visually-impaired, mobility-challenged, learning-impaired, socially-anxious, recordkeepers, crowd-avoidant
- Features: Scalable accessibility, multilingual text, visual accessibility, screenreader support, content acquisition, exhibit history
Overcoming barriers
| Challenge | Resolution |
|---|---|
| Installation efficiency | Content formatting AI, admin performance, shake-to-encode |
| Varied audience access needs | Frictionless BYOD accessibility (no app iOS, instant download Android) |
| More content than label space | One tap provides book-length text, photos, audio, video |
| Alienating low-vision guests | Hyperlegible text, integrated screen-reader support |
| Retrofit existing exhibition | Ready-to-use indicator/tag stickers |
Unusual location, unexpected innovation: the Quad Cities
Between Le Claire and Rapids City, the Mississippi river corners sharply rightward, flowing East to West for the first time until turning back South at Muscatine. This stretch is home to the five (yes, five) Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois.
Founded in 1865, The Putnam Museum and Science Center lived the scientific innovation and natural history that sprang forth from this region. From John Deere's revolutionary steel plows and subsequent industrialization to appendectomies, washing machines, taco pizza—and actually inventing sliced bread—Quad Citizens create change that resonates.
Increasing tourism from Interstate 80 and Mississippi river travelers brings more visitors with more and varied accessibility needs to The Putnam each year. Consequently, the Putnam team wanted to ensure the Quad Cities' story was every visitor's story regardless of age, ability, or language.
Common Ground: Our Voice, Our Stories
"We're all different and that's our Common Ground"
Common Ground showcases the real community history that made the region's life-changing impacts possible. Visitors explore the Quad Cities' collective past through stories and artifacts as told through diverse voices and perspectives.
Critically, Common Ground had to be Capption-able quickly by one extremely busy curator. This was the perfect opportunity to debut three installation-hastening improvements simultaneously:
- Capption Admin version 2.0: significantly-improved performance and content editing enhancements
- AI formatting: AI rapidly converts Word, Docs, or .pdf text into copy-pasteable Markdown and can inject it as .csv cell entries for bulk upload when needed
- Shake-to-encode: "whip" your phone with the Capption app open to write the displayed Capption to a blank NFC tag
After content entry, Putnam's curator applied tags and indicators to 37 exhibits and encoded each without error (see action shot photos below). One champion leading from the front installed Capption atop Common Ground in about 50 minutes, then walked straight into a press interview!
Then, immediately after installation, we trained the whole volunteer corps on Capption. They quality-checked each tag and its content as a large group with dozens of different devices and found no issues. Common Ground was ready for launch just days later on August 19, 2026 at The Putnam's Inclusion in the Arts event hosted by Academy Award-winning actress, author, and advocate Marlee Matlin.
Science in action, access for all
After operating for 13 days in only one of their many exhibits, The Putnam helped 82 people a combined 948 times.
"Working with Capption at the Putnam Museum and Science Center was/is a great experience. You made the process easy to understand and execute, and the installation was a breeze! You are doing great work that is a gamechanger for museum accessibility!"
—Assistant Curator at the Putnam Museum and Science Center on LinkedIn
We pulled this analytics snapshot mid-day August 31, 2026:
- Duration: ~13 days
- Exhibits: 37
- Unique visitors: 82
- Unique views: 948
- Engagement depth: 7.32 views/user
- Most common alternate languages: Spanish, German, Afrikaans
- Accessibility use: 23.2%
- Screenreader usage: 1.2%
Go further
- Exhibit Capptions: Examples from Common Ground: Common Ground: Our Voice, Our Stories, Crossroads in the Heartland, and Welcoming New Neighbors.
- Learn more: Putnam Museum upcoming exhibits
Bring true accessibility innovation to your cultural insitution.
Take action:
Schedule your demo of Capption today.