Architectural Historical Tour

My main focus this week was to get the historical and architectural tour up and running in the most basic form. I used the exact text from the booklet that the history center gives to their docents. This made for a great foundation, because at the very least I will be giving them the tour they already have, just in an app.

I have some aspects that I want to enhance such as more history about the surrounding area and we still have to figure out if the guests will be reading the screen or watching a video or listening to audio. This is one of the more tricky issues because audio would be preferred in many instances since you can hold up your phone or tablet and look around while you are told things about your location. Many museums and historical sites use these audio tours for this reason.

One issue with the audio tour is the language barrier. I spent a week adding functionality to make the tour available in several languages and it would be anti-productive to ditch that in favor of audio only since I can’t verify the quality of any AI voice or language software like I could written. Another issue is the volume. Most audio tours for historic sites or museums rent out a handheld device that you hold up to your ear, so the sound is not an issue. We will be using phones or tablets and of course you would want someone to keep the volume low, but its up to the user which could create problems. Another problem is that the app is designed to incorporate both audio and visual aspects, but most visual. So holding the phone up to their ear, would prevent the guests from seeing illustrations or photographs.

I was speaking to my supervisor about this and we had not come up with any solutions. The version I currently have on my phone that I showed her was full of text and it would be annoying to read and not at all the experience I want the guests to have. They don’t need to be holding up their phone reading several paragraphs of dense text about columns, porticos and domes.  I will continue to work on the app and filling it with the tours and experiences first and then we can figure out how best to present these to the guests.

This experience is very enlightening since I have to be aware of ADA requirements, budgets and county regulations as well as guest expectations.