For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.

Ernest Hemmingway was said to have called this six word story his best work. For 25 letters it paints a very poignant picture.

As interpreters we try to ensure every word that we use justifies its place, and encourages people to use their senses and imaginations to widen their understanding.



Yesterday I attended the launch of our Coed y Brenin audio trails, for Forestry Commission Wales. Following the opening of the trails by Iolo Williams - Welsh celebrity and narrator of the guides - a mixed group of around 50 people, aged between 8 and 80, walked the Afon Eden trail, which starts beside the visitor centre.

Taking a large group on an audio trail is not an ideal introduction to this form of interpretation, but it was interesting to talk to people about their experience afterwards. Opportunities for eliciting visitor feedback for digital interpretation are slim, because the content is often downloaded from the web without interaction with staff.

The response was overwhelmingly positive yet, like shoes, we all choose different styles and lengths to fit our requirements. For this trail we purposefully kept the audio tracks quite short as the target audience were families. However, those with a keen interest in the subject felt a little short changed - they wanted to hear more. It is difficult to balance the needs of all the different user groups, so it is essential you plan well and identify who your audience(s) are.

Interestingly, on a visit to the Peak District as part of an Association of Heritage Interpretation (AHI) event, one criticism of the Mam Tor audio trail is that it didn't tell of the landscape, the geology and other subjects. The National Trust wanted to focus on the story of the hill fort, and rightly so. If we had written about all the potential subject then each audio track would have run to many minutes - and no doubt complaints from the assembled group that it should be shorter!

Yet there are now ways to offer a 'one size fits all' solution (albeit with some limitations). I will return to this subject soon.

How to make an audio trail

Anyone can create an audio trail, you just need time; some relatively cheap equipment; a bit of creativity; and a piece of free software. What it may lack in professional finish can be substituted with careful planning and innovation - remember, content is king!

The 2 minute video below, made by South Cheshire College, is in itself quite rough and ready, but it does provide some useful information for the beginner.



We (Audio Trails) have written a 7-page document that provides further hints and tips on how to produce your own downloadable audio guides. To download it for free just register your name below.

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The mobile Operating System lottery?

Continuing on the statistics theme...If hype was a true representation of market share then you would be forgiven for believing that the most popular mobile operating system - the thing that makes the phone tick - was that run by the iPhone.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/23/smartphone-iphone-sales-2009-gartner/

There in fact seven major operating systems for smartphones - mobile phones with a large, high-resolution screen, internet access and the ability to download applications from third party providers - and in actual fact it was the Symbian platform that accounted for nearly 50% of the worldwide market share during 2009. Second on that list was Blackberry's Research In Motion (RIM) whose share was a fraction shy of 20%. iPhone came in third, a place up from 2008, and according to the figures Android was languishing behind Microsoft Windows Mobile and Linux in sixth.

However, as we all know technology moves at a frantic pace and these figures don't tell the whole story. Symbian handset sales were up 10% in 2009 from the previous year, but their market share fell 5.5%. The big gains were made by Android and iPhone and first quarter results for 2010 further support this shift in power.

So what does all this say when deciding on what platform(s) you should choose when looking to develop apps for your visitors?

Current sales are one thing, but we need to remember that mobile phones sold over a year ago are still in circulation - and their owners still want to feel they have a phone that is being catered for. Cross platform apps - software written for several operating systems - may cost more money to develop, but until either a) one operating system wins out (unlikely) or b) one language can work on all operating systems (even more unlikely) then it is best not to put all your eggs in one basket. With audio we are lucky. The MP3 file is generic and will work on any mobile device.

So if you are wanting to develop an app which platforms are king? Symbian runs on a java environment and with such a large market share it would be careless to exclude this, even if its market share is falling and it doesn't have such a visible app store - although unlike some platforms it will accept content from a Bluetooth unit installed on site. iPhone and especially Android are experiencing growth and are the first two operating systems when you think of apps. These in my opinion are the three main players, although Blackberry owners too would argue a strong case for inclusion.

At the end of the day perhaps when visitor surveys take are undertaken at your property should we be asking what mobile phones people have and whether they would engage with mobile digital interpretation, in addition to where they have come from that day.

It would be interesting to know if anyone has undertaken such a study and what the results were.