Techies in Residence - Prototype App for North Townlands Heritage Trail

GSAP is a key community support agency in the Greater Shantallow Area working with and on behalf of local residents and the community. 

For some time this group has been planning and researching a Heritage Park for the Outer North/Greater Shantallow area of Derry City, building on the rich and varied range of heritage assets, which are either often over-looked, under-appreciated or simply unrecognised.

‘The North Townlands’ Heritage Park would conserve and interpret local history, attract funding to enhance leisure, heritage and tourism assets and would bring attention to the need to enhance the physical appearance and condition of local heritage assets.

The spatial concept of the Heritage Trail is based on the idea that the key locations are to evolve as destinations, comprising clusters of interpretation panels/content telling the stories and history of the site and nearby locations.

For the project GSAP has been paired with Oli - an award-winning tourism and digital consultancy delivering strategy, planning and implementation of visitor experiences and digital solutions. As part of this project GSAP and Oli will develop a BETA Heritage Trail app for iOS and Android platforms. 

The Challenge: To develop a digital approach to heritage interpretation (eg future use of an app, QR Code and /or Virtual Reality technologies as key platforms for interpretative and tourism development).

The Solution: This team aims to have a functioning prototype by the end of the programme in June that can be showcased to key stakeholders.

Oli, which has extensive experience developing tourism apps, will work with GSAP on the 7-point heritage trail.

Key features may include:

• Audio points
• Video content
• Image gallery
• Image social sharing
• CMS to update digital content 

By having a working prototype GSAP will be able to pitch for additional funding to scale the project to include a broader geographic area within Derry City and Strabane District Council area as well as enhancing the platform to include further innovative features such as, but not limited to Image recognition,  iBeacon triggering and Virtual reality 

GSAP will also be able to implement other digital interpretative solutions as a result of this project, such as:  App platform, Digital Interpretation panels,  Physical digital hardware in location and Interactive leaflets.

Click here to find out more about the Techies in Residence programme.