Permanent collection or temporary exhibition. Every visit recorded.

i-Guide for Public Spaces

Interactive museum and gallery tours on PDAs or Mobile Phones, created by museum and gallery staff.

i-Guide is an exciting and completely new way to introduce your collection to a new generation of visitors.

How i-Guide Works

i-Guide digital learning activities are designed by museum or gallery staff, often in conjunction with local teachers, using the straightforward tools provided. They take the form of interactive  Trails or worksheets, which can include audio and video, giving detailed information and asking in-depth questions about the exhibits.

Responses are entered as typed text or multiple-choice answers – there are also facilities for images with hotspots to click, tables, links to further information and more. All the responses entered by the visitor are saved for extended work in school or at home.

Because i-Guide is web-based there are no boundaries dictating the amount of information that can be included, where the work can be continued or what direction it can take.

How does it work? Click here to see a step-by-step explanation of the process.

Flexible and Adaptable

Created by gallery or museum staff, i-Guide learning materials are wholly owned by your museum or gallery. They can be quickly and easily adapted to cope with temporary exhibitions, exhibits removed from display, or to cater for a visiting group's individual needs. Using mobile phones or outdoor wireless networks, Trails can cover outdoor as well as internal exhibits.

Working with teachers, education staff can adapt the experience to an individual class or even student. For example, certain pupils can have access to extra web pages. These can be developed for children with learning difficulties who need extra support. Those who wish to race ahead can be challenged and stimulated with further investigations.

Using i-Guide: Preview

Before a visit, the students can preview the learning trail at home or at school on any computer connected to the internet. This preparation – which could be led by a teacher using an interactive whiteboard – outlines the museum's collection and the purpose of the visit, and introduces the capabilities of the system.

In the Gallery

Equipped with handheld devices, students explore the exhibits individually or in small groups, using the tailor-made programme. They have personal control over their experience, and are encouraged to examine in depth the objects and pictures they confront. They can choose which themes or objects to study, responding to specifically created questions and activities.

In addition to their responses to prompts and questions, students can make their own notes and even take photos or make voice recordings and attach them to their Trails.  All their work is immediately saved and is accessible on any computer – at school, at home, or in a public library or internet café.

Follow Up

Activities can be continued back at school or at home. By picking up their recorded trails online students can review and develop their work, and can be asked further questions to stimulate deeper interest in the objects. i-Guide realizes the potential of the internet within the museum’s physical space and provides a structure for developing research skills and extending knowledge.

Web Trails and Virtual Visits

As well as supporting actual visits to Museums and Galleries, interactive i-Guide trails can be built around an existing website or a combination of web pages from different sites. Thus you can create a structured lesson on a theme using material taken from across a group of galleries, or quickly add an interactive, educational layer to an existing website. These Web Trails can be accessed remotely from any internet-linked computer or classroom whiteboard.

Record keeping and information

StreetAccess stores the individual records of each visitor and provides access to them for the visitor and to their teachers or others where appropriate. For the museum or its sponsors, information can be collated on details such as the number of users, trails taken, most visited objects, gallery visits and more.

Information exchange

i-Guide data can easily be made available for wider use. For example a museum or gallery could promote a "Trail of the Week", or set up a "Trail Views Exchange" where visitors’ recorded Trails – complete with their own inputs – are made available to a wider audience via the internet or through internal public display facilities.

Training, Support and Hardware

The i-Guide licence includes full training and support.

i-Guide is not dependent on any particular hardware; rather it will work with any device that can access the internet and has an HTML web browser. Thus you are not tied in to a particular technology, and the system will work with existing equipment as well as being entirely future-proof. Accordingly, StreetAccess do not provide hardware. However we can advise on suitable options or, with our partners, offer a complete installation service.

Trail Creation

i-Guide is designed to be simple to use and to allow anyone easily to create trails. However we realize that staff are often already fully committed, so we also offer a trail-writing service. Collaborating closely with your staff, we can create bespoke Trails for use in your institution. The results are wholly owned by you, and can be edited or amended by museum or gallery staff as circumstances dictate.

Links to more information

How does it work?

What is a trail?

Download our Museum and Gallery brochure

View a video of the Dulwich Picture Gallery experience.

top of page