2. Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
• Many attractions contained within the dockyard
• Lots of opportunity for historical interpretation in the
dockyard itself
3. The concept
• To produce a resource that allows visitors to get more
out of their visit, not just one or two attractions
• To avoid problems with previous interpretation/guides
• Interpretation boards clutter up the space
• Audio “wands” have a tendency to disappear
• Printed material goes out of date
• Solution: create a smartphone app that visitors can download
to their own devices
4. About Surface Impression
• Specialists in digital media for museums & heritage
• Founded in 2001
• Very experienced in
• Web development and interactives
• Online collections
• Social media / engagement
• Mobile and in-gallery implementation
• Used to working with HLF, Arts Council and other funding
bodies
5.
6.
7. The plan
• Lead with “tours” rather than attractions
• Different tour topics or audience groups
• To be free and available on Apple and Android
• People to follow geo-located points of interest
• Use internet mapping (Google / Apple) to
show the points
• But also have a strong narrative thread that
could be followed
10. Content
• Nick pulled together the content from a variety of
sources to create a coherent narrative
• Content is entered into a content management system so
the app can be updated at any time, without needing a
new submission to the app store
11. Locations
• Measuring location accurately can be tricky
• We’ve tended to use photography – either on GPS
enabled cameras or ordinary smartphones
• But if you use your own phone, it can be inaccurate
• Inaccuracies also creep in from human error
– Where you’re standing to take a photo is the recorded location
– But it’s easy to think the thing you photographed is being
located
• Some points have had to be adjusted using online maps
12. Field tests
• Once the app was coded up
and largely functional, we
held a testing session at the
Dockyard
• Representatives from the
organisation and the
attractions attended
• They tried out the tours and
assessed the content
• We also did a “secret
shopper” test with two
children
13.
14. What we found
• The overall concept and
narrative approach was well
received
• Inevitably some details needed
to be changed
• The news feed / calendar was
not translating well from
website to app
• The Google/Apple maps for the
Dockyard didn’t make sense
• Location-based unlocking of
content was too crude
15. Solution 1: selfies
instead of unlocking
• Instead of tying
achievements in the kids
tour to “unlocking”
locations, we encouraged
them to take photographs of
themselves at the spot
instead
• They can then show their
“album” of found places to
get small rewards
16. Solution 2:
a drawn map
• Instead of using online maps,
we adapted a diagramatic map
that Portsmouth Historic
Dockyard had commissioned
for print
• But we had to modify it
heavily, repositioning the
elements so that they
accurately represented
latitude and longitude
17. What’s next
• Imminent launch on Apple App store followed by Google
Play
• Tweak content over the winter, ready for push in spring
2015
• Market the app to visitors – opportunities:
– Signage in queue areas
– On tickets, brochures, ads
– Social media, website etc
– Optimisation on App store and Google Play
18. Contact
Peter Pavement
Surface Impression
peterp@surfaceimpression.com
@peterpavement
01273 958600
Nick Hewitt
National Museum of the Royal Navy
nick.hewitt@nmrn.org.uk
@NickHewitt4
02392 724391
