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Museum Guides

17
December

Boys Town Village Tour

December 17, 2018
In Branded App, Case Studies, Driving Tours, Museum Guides, Virtual Tours
By lydia
Father Edward J. Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town was inspired over a century ago to the mission of saving children and healing families.  His legacy lives on as the Boys Town organization is committed to this outreach for the next century to come.  Boys Town welcomes visitors to tour their village in Omaha, Nebraska.  They have created an app that visitors can use as both a virtual tour and a driving tour of the village.  The app is available for free on the App Store and Google Play.

 

About the App

 

Boys Town chose the Tour Buddy App Builder platform to create their app to tell their organization’s story through various tours of the Boys Town Village.  The hands free GPS capability allows visitors to drive around the Boys Town Village and hear the story (audio coming soon) of Boys Town.  The app also includes other tours including the Hall of History Tour, then guests can take in the beauty and learn the significance of Dowd Chapel, and guests can also  walk through Father Flanagan’s Historic House.  The app also provides links to a donation page through the Boys Town website and a copy of the Boys Town printed map.

Contact Tour Buddy Apps to learn how your organization can create a tour of your facility or location.

03
September

ADA Accessible Museum Tour App

September 3, 2017
In Branded App, Case Studies, GPS Tours, Museum Guides
By Sarah Pounders

The last ten years of smart phone technology has presented so many new opportunities to make destinations even more accessible than ever before.  The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s Shipwreck Museum in Alpena, Michigan has made its museum and boat tour accessible to guests who are visually impaired through on site displays and a museum tour app that can be continually updated.  Learn how the Shipwreck Alley App was created and how it is helping the museum meet accessibility guidelines.  

The App

The National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan recently created a museum tour app.  The mobile app tour would allow guests to take a self guided tour.   The Shipwreck Alley App offers guests a self-guided tour of the Shipwreck museum as well as a GPS triggered outdoor tour on their glass bottom boat.  The vision for creating an app grew out of the desire to make their museum and boat tour accessible for people who are visually impaired.

Accessibility Features

The goal was to make the museum and boat tour a self-guided and independent experience for all guests.   After much research, the Marine Sanctuary liked the Tour Buddy App because they input their own content into the easy to use App Builder and they could integrate the app with ibeacons.

The ibeacons would make it possible for guests to be notified when they are in a particular section of the museum and hear audio about that section.  In addition to the ibeacon integration, the iOS Tour Buddy App is also optimized for accessibility.   Users can turn on the voice over mode (this feature only available in the iOS version of Shipwreck Alley) and listen to the app’s content being read, a key feature in iOS devices for users who are visually impaired.

Now, all guests can enjoy an interactive and self-guided tour of the Shipwreck museum.