How to Use Your Smartwatch for Museum and Art Gallery Audio Guides

10 Steps for Creating an Audio Guide for Your Museum

If youre looking for ways to engage your visitors and take your museum experience to the next level, consider creating an audio guide. This can be a smart way to provide additional information about the exhibits while adding an interactive component to your visit. Visitors can explore the exhibits at their own pace and in the language of their choice.

In this article, we will discuss 10 important steps for creating an audio guide for your museum, gallery, or library.

1. Decide on your goals for the audio guide

The first step is to get clear on why youre creating the app. Do you want to offer multi-language content? Improve accessibility? Provide a richer experience? Educate your visitors on a specific topic?

The good news is that, while creating audio content can be time-consuming, you dont have to create an audio track for every item in every exhibit. You can create audio content for your main exhibit and text content for the smaller onesall in the same app. If you start by listing your goals, itll be easier to make decisions later.

2. Choose an audio guide app builder

Next, its time to choose the platform youll use to build your audio guide. When building a museum app, you dont need to code it from scratch. An app-building platform allows you to add your multimedia content with no coding required. This can cut the costs (compared with custom app development) by 90%. Keep in mind that you can also get funding to help your museum cover the costs of the app builders monthly or annual fee.

STQRY is an easy-to-use platform for building apps, like this example of the Chihuly Glass Walking Tour within the Tacoma Art Museum app.

3. Strategize the structure of your tour (or tours)

No two museums are alike. One museum might have an audio guide app with one tour and 25 stops. Another museum might have three different tours, each with a dozen stops.

Consider the size, layout, design, and overall organization of your museum when deciding how to break up the content into tours.

Make sure to talk with all app stakeholders about your plan before moving onto writing your audio scripts. Itll be a lot easier to create the app if you have stakeholders review important stages of the project.

For example, the Walt Disney Family Museum offers one main tour of the gallery with audio tracks that feature Walt Disneys voice.

4. Write and review the audio scripts for each tour and stop

With your tour plan and outline in place, you can move onto writing the audio scripts. To create an amazing audio tour, consider these elements:

• What are the stories that will elicit emotion from visitors?
• What are the important details?
• What are the common questions that visitors ask?
• Will you have multiple voice actors, or just one?
• What length should each script be, based on its importance and location in the museum?

Most museums create audio tracks that are 2 to 5 minutes in length, while audio guides designed for driving tours might feature longer tracks.

5. Record your audio

Now its time to record your audio. If youre hiring voice actors, they should have their own studio and recording tools to protect the quality of the audio that they produce for their clients.

When creating your own audio, youll need to invest in some good-quality equipment. This includes a microphone, a digital recording app, and possibly some soundproofing materials if you live in a city or noisy area. Once you have the necessary equipment, you can begin recording your audio guide. Try to avoid background noise as much as possible. Record in a quiet room or space. If you have to, record in the late evenings when background noise interruptions might be less of a problem.

6. Edit and add audio effects

Once you have recorded all of the audio for your guide, it is time to edit. Cut out any mistakes, pauses, or filler words. You may also want to add music or sound effects in certain places to make the audio more engaging.

Audio editing services are typically pretty affordable, so consider reaching out to an agency or find a freelancer on a site like Upwork or Fiverr.

7. Gather text and imagery for each tour and stop

Each tour should have its own text description and cover image. For the highest quality audio guide, you should provide a short text description, audio transcription, and image for each stop on the tour as well. This not only improves the accessibility of your content, but also makes it more visually appealing.

8. Customize the design of the audio guide app

Now its time to customize the design of your audio guide app. This includes the welcome page, the welcome page image, menu navigation, and the main color palette. Building an audio guide app is, fortunately, easier than you think, because the building platform you choose should offer the ability to easily customize the welcome page, menu, and colors with just a few clicks.

9. Set up geo triggers if desired

With STQRY you can set up geo-triggered content with bluetooth beacons or GPS geofencing. When visitors walk past a beacon on a statue, for example, the app will give them a notification to open up that content. Or, they can set it up to autoplay as they walk along. This is a good fit for large museums where visitors might wander and take their own path, or for museums that want to have fewer stops, for example to have one stop for each room or small exhibit.

However, many museums can simply offer the tour content, and allow visitors to navigate through it on their phone without geo triggers.

10. Include museum and membership information in your app

Because visitors will be using your audio guide, its a viable communication channel available to your organization. You should create a page in your app for important museum information, such as your hours, gift shop location, and membership pricing. You can even embed your membership payment processor directly into your app to drive purchases.

Creating an audio guide for your museum can be a great way to enhance the visitor experience. By following these steps, you can ensure that you create high-quality recordings that will engage and inform your visitors.

To create a beautiful audio guide app with no coding required, check out STQRY.

Explore World-Class Museums From Home With Smartifys Free Audio Tours

Hundreds of cultural institutions around the worldincluding the Smithsonian Institutions 19 museums, galleries, gardens and National Zoohave closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But thanks to a growing array of digital offerings, museum lovers have plenty of options for experiencing world-class institutions from home. (See Smithsonian magazines roundups of museums you can remotely visit, collections available for perusal online and ways to virtually explore the Smithsonian for additional inspiration.)

The Smartify mobile app, popularly dubbed Shazam for the art world, is the latest luminary to join the growing wave of readily accessible, digital-first museum content.

Now through the end of 2020, reports Mark Brown for the Guardian, the apphome to a database of some two million artworks from more than 120 venueshas made all of its audio tours available free of charge. Selected exhibits that were unable to open due to museum and gallery closures (including the Watts Gallery Artists Villages John Ruskin retrospective) will launch on the app instead.

Launched in 2017 with a database of 30 museums, according to Smithsonians Ben Panko, Smartify models itself on Shazam, a mobile app that identifies songs based on snippets of audio. To use the art world version of Shazam, users simply scan an artwork, bringing up a blurb detailing the pieces name, artist and history.

Smartify also hosts visual and audio tours of such institutions as the British Library, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Hermitage. Previously, some were paid, while others were free; now, all are available at no cost.

Obviously we have seen a change in the way the app is used, Anna Lowe, one of the companys co-founders, tells the Guardian. We started the app from a love of visiting museums and galleries and seeing and connecting with art.

Smartify allows museum lovers to browse art from institutions in Europe, the United States, Iran, Egypt and Singapore, among other locales. Users can take hour-long audio tours of such venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth and the London National Portrait Gallery, or simply tune in for short snippets on specific works. Tours are led by curators, historians and artists themselves.

The Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery Smartify collection features a digital gallery of more than 1,000 artworks, as well as a one-hour visual description tour of select presidential portraits. The Smithsonians National Museum of Asian Art, meanwhile, boasts an in-app digital collection of more than 650 works.

Other Smartify offerings include a guided tour of the National Gallery of Art; a descriptive walk through the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Arts sculpture park, as narrated by artist Juliana Capes; and an American Sign Language tour of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

The apps new role as a virtual tour guide represents a shift from its original purpose of supplementing in-person museum visits. But the change still adheres to Smartifys original mission.

At times like this, really strange times, people look to art and music and culture for inspiration, solace a sense of normal, Lowe tells the Guardian, Anything we can do to help that and help people access art and culture is important at a time like this.

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How to use a wearable: tips to make the most of your smartwatch or fitness tracker

You got a new fitness tracker or smartwatch for Christmas. Great! Now what?

Whether youve got the latest Apple Watch Series 6, a Fitbit, an Oura ring or any other one of the best fitness trackers or best smartwatches, itll come with instructions online or within a physical booklet to help you get the device (and you) up and running.

Youll need to download the accompanying app, pair your device with your phone, charge it up and learn how to use the basic controls. Exactly how you do these things will vary from device to device and we recommend you follow the step-by-step instructions and do those first.

However, most instructions get you started. But what comes next? Beyond the set-up steps, there are plenty of other things you need to know to get the most out of your new wearable so it can make a positive difference to your life and work for you, not against you. You dont want it to be a negative drain, a waste of money or another present that gets stuffed in a drawer somewhere and forgotten about.

Our advice includes the importance of a comfy fit, habit-setting suggestions, why customization is worth it, tips about goals and much more.

Of course, every wearable device is different, as is every person who wears one. But these are our suggestions that should give most people a better chance of getting on well with their new wearable device.

1. Get the fit right

You just put it on and fasten it tightly, right? Sort of. Its very easy to strap any wearable on and start using it. But its important to be mindful about how it fits. Are the buckles digging in? Is the material irritating you a little? If it doesnt feel good now, you wont want to wear it in future.

You want a just right fit that isnt so tight it leaves marks on your wrist, but is tight enough for the sensors to work properly. For example, most wearable devices these days have a heart rate sensor built-in to the back. For this to measure bloodflow accurately, it needs to be close to your skin.

Play around with how tight you wear your new smartwatch or fitness tracker and, if you need to and its possible with your device, swap out the strap for one thats a better fit or made from a more comfortable material.

2. Change the app dashboard

The key thing to remember when you get a new wearable device is: make it work for you. What we mean is there are plenty of devices that can track and do all kinds of things. Some people might love this and want to find out everything there is to know about their sleep, fitness levels, stress levels and much more. Others might just want to count their steps and take a look at heart rate data occasionally. Just because your device can do anything doesnt mean you need to track or care about everything. This can lead to you becoming overwhelmed, focusing on numbers that dont really matter to you and just extra stress you dont need.

A good place to start in defining what matters to you and what doesnt is to customize the stats you see on your apps dashboard. Its not possible to do this for every wearable. But some, like Fitbit, allow you to edit which stats are shown as you open up the app (take a look at the screenshots above). For example, with the Fitbit app you can customize your dashboard so you see nothing about calories. This is really handy if you want to feel generally fitter and healthier but dont want to focus on weight loss which can be problematic for some people.

One workout we do a lot at the moment is spinning. However, for the longest time its been the last activity in the exercise menu on our Fitbit Versa. Sure, we can just scroll down to select it. But it would only take a minute or two to move it to the top spot by using the Fitbit app, making things feel easier and more intuitive. If you have a wearable that has a screen and allows you to customize or make small tweaks to what you see on it, spend some time ensuring its exactly what you need in the order you need it.

This might not seem like a big deal. Who cares if you have to scroll two more times to find the workout you need? But its these small bits of friction that can make using tech feel more like a chore than a helping hand especially if they all start to add up. So taking the time to change these settings now and make them more you will help in the long-run.

4. Pick the right charging spot

We've tried a lot of wearables over the years. Sometimes we've had to take them off to charge them and immediately put them on as soon as the battery reaches 100 per cent. Others get left for days because we just keep forgetting amidst all the other jobs we need to do. Where you charge your wearable really matters.

Under a desk where its out of sight, out of mind? No good. In the kitchen near the coffee machine so we see it every time we go to get another hit of caffeine? Perfect. This will be different for everyone, but again, the goal is to make using your new wearable device every day easy. Because the buzz of excitement you feel to wear it right now is unlikely to last.

5. Make putting it on a good habit

Picking the best charging place for your wearable device so you dont forget about it is part of a wider consideration about turning your wearable and wearing it, checking it and charging it into behavior that feels natural and habitual.

This is why we recommend borrowing some suggestions from habit-building theory to help. This doesnt have to be confusing or extensive. Instead, we can pick and choose what we incorporate.

Social scientist and researcher at Stanford University BJ Fogg is a big believer in the power of prompts. In his book, Tiny Habits, he explains that no behavior happens without a prompt. This is essentially something, anything, that tells you to do a thing now. He gives the example of a woman who would do the same morning routine, then write her priorities on a post-it note.

Prompts can be physical, like that example, maybe you could put a Post-it saying Fitbit next to your coffee machine or on your mirror? Or whats known as a context prompt, this is when youre prompted to do something because you associate it with something else in the example above, we had begun to associate making a coffee with strapping my tracker on.

Other prompts that Fogg recommends are: sending yourself a text message, writing on your bathroom mirror, setting an alarm with your voice assistant and sticking a reminder on your fridge. All of these could work well when it comes to prompting yourself to put on your new tracker.

The good news is, this simple prompt for one simple behavior can have a positive effect on other behaviors. Fogg writes: what had started with one Post-it turned into a productivity avalanche.

6. Connect with other apps and services

Most wearables can do a lot, but they cant tell you everything there is to know about your health and fitness. For example, many can track your activity and heart rate levels. But few have menstrual tracking features that are as good as apps like Clue and Glow. Whats more, some have nutritional tracking databases, but not many are as extensive as MyFitnessPal. That means you might want to sync up the apps you already use and love with your new wearable and its app. Simply put, youll want to get your apps to talk to each other so you can get more from each of them and find out more about yourself.

The way to do this is different for every wearable, but most have a section in the settings called apps or connections. Theres usually a list of supported apps here and you can select which one youd like to give permission to access your health and fitness data.

This is also a good way of revoking access to apps you dont want to access your health and fitness data. On that point, watch out for any apps trying to seek permission to access data that they just dont need. Always question whether an app really needs to know your step count or your location. If it's not obvious why a health app or taxi app, for example then don't allow it.

7. Find the notification settings that work for you

If you have a wearable with a screen then chances are you can have notifications from your phone also sent to your wrist. Some devices can only notify you of texts and calls. Others can send any app notification, including WhatsApp, email or Ring notifications, sent to the screen.

The question is: is this a good idea or a shortcut to panic? The answer is: it all depends on you. Personally, we like to have any notification that pops up on our phone screen to appear on the wearable too. Why this is good for us and our productivity is because of something called in-phone interruptions. This is the idea that if we look at our phones for one thing, theres a good chance well get distracted by something else. So the reason you looked in the first place takes much longer and can often be forgotten completely!

But just because this works for me doesnt mean its right for you. We know some people find sending all of their notifications to their wrists really panic-inducing and would instead like to keep it as a message-free space. Settings to turn them on, off or customize them are within your wearables app and tend to be easy to toggle on and off, so we'd suggest trialing them to see what you think.

8. Set your goals

If you have a fitness tracker because theres something specific you want to do and it'll help you, which most of the time there is, take advantage of the trackers goal-setting feature. This could be setting a step goal for the day or, if youre training for something and have a device built for fitness, particular distance or time goals. If you want to increase your fitness generally, you might want to set a goal of just five days of exercise a week, regardless of what it is.

We like to use wearables even when we dont have a super specific goal in mind, but therell always be something we're interested in hitting eight hours sleep, 8,000 steps, something like that. The key for us over the years has been to focus on one thing at a time. Our wearable tech can track a lot of things, but it can perform better when weve got one clear goal at once.

This is also the basic premise of Greg McKeowns book Essentialism. The idea is that, to achieve more, we should pursue less stuff and do it better. Theres a lot more to McKeowns essentialist view of life, but a few key things for us to remember when it comes to fitness trackers is: choose what to pay attention to (dont feel like you have to do everything), remove obstacles to make your goals easier and experience joy in the journey of getting things done.

This sounds good in theory, but what does it look like in practice? To us, its choosing one goal to set and think about at a time, editing an apps home screen so what ww want to focus on is there and what we dont isnt. Its also about making the customizations to the app and wearable screen mentioned above we want to remove obstacles. Finally, experiencing joy for us comes with less pressure and more games, fun badges and, importantly, ways to switch off when we need to which we'll come to soon.

9. Take it off (yes, really)

A lot of the best fitness trackers these days are designed for 24/7 wear you just need to take them off every couple of days or every week to charge them up for a few hours. Thats why it might seem like this advice is a bit weird especially for a tech site. But its important to go without your tracker now and again for a few important reasons.

The first reason is itll lessen the chances your skin will be irritated if you give it a break every so often. Most wearables are specially designed to not cause irritation whether thats the strap or the body of the watch or wearable that sits flush to your wrist but we've noticed we can experience some mild irritation and itching. Especially with waterproof wearables that we wear in the shower our thinking is that soap likely gets caught behind it.

The second reason is itll lessen the chances that you become too reliant on your wearable. Wait a minute. Didnt we just cover how to create habits with putting on your wearable? Absolutely. But theres a balance here. The majority of people dont have issues with becoming too hyper-focused on their wearables and the data they collect, but there are cases of people becoming obsessed with sleep data (researchers have called this orthosomnia), as well as others having eating disorders triggered or exacerbated by the calorie and activity data thats so easily accessible.

When we wrote about the possible link between disordered eating and fitness trackers and wearables, Dr Carolyn Plateau, a lecturer in psychology at Loughborough University, recommended making peace with taking it off now and again. Maybe you make this regular. Like every Sunday youll leave it off or you realize you dont need to wear it at night. It doesnt matter when you choose, its just about proving you could wear it all the time, but you dont need to.

10. Ask yourself: what's your why?

When we spoke to Dr Carolyn Plateau she told us people are less likely to have problematic relationships with devices when they're used to improve general wellbeing and to read a positive goal rather than one that feels more negative, i.e. losing weight. If you feel like you need to lose weight and have support and a healthy mindset, were not stopping you. But this is about doing whats right for you, choosing things that'll work in the long-run and not triggering bigger problems. So its worth considering your why from the get-go.

With all the focus here on goal-setting and habit-building, its also worth mentioning that fitness trackers can be used for awareness-building to begin with. What I mean is, maybe you dont know what your step or sleep goal should be because, where would you begin?

Our advice would be to use the tracker for a month to see where youre at now, whats possible and what you might want to achieve in the future. So much is said for constantly improving and upgrading, maybe you just want to watch, track or just for things to stay how they are and to aim for more balance instead. Theres no right or wrong way to use health and fitness tech.