How do audio guides work? A simple guide with examples

What are the advantages of an audio guide? With an audio guide, visitors to a museum can acoustically immerse themselves in an exhibition and discover, learn and experience it in a completely new way. You can listen to entire tours or individual chapters.

Museum visitors are often already busy with their eyes: They collect visual impressions and have to read a lot of text at the same time. To improve the museum experience, an audio tour is a good option.

Why is an audio guide system worthwhile? It allows visitors to focus on the objects and the room while listening to exciting background information. Studies show that visitors can remember things better thanks to audio guides.

From improving learning success to increasing overall visitor satisfaction: audio guides offer a range of benefits. By providing a more interactive experience, audio guides can help visitors engage more deeply with the exhibits and develop a greater appreciation for the museum. In addition, audio guides can make museums more accessible for visitors with limitations and disabilities and appeal to a wider audience.

A good audio guide system must be user-friendly for the museum and its visitors. But what does that mean in concrete terms? We have implemented over 60 projects with Audio-Cult and gathered the most important empirical values.
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For visitors
❌ the guide should not distract from the content.
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✅ This means that it must be intuitive and easy to use. Ideally, your visitors can use their own device - without having to download or rent a device. They scan a QR code and can call up a continuous tour or individual chapters.

For the museum
❌ It must not be complicated to build and edit tours.
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✅ It must be possible to create and adapt tours easily and independently. If an object moves or an exhibition changes, you can design the audio guide with a simple tool - without any agencies, without spending a lot of time and without high costs.

A successful audio guide should also have text and image cues with an intuitive design. Visitors can use maps or visual cues to find their way around and see which station they are at. A barrier-free solution with a screen reader function should be guaranteed for blind people.

A good museum guide should be both entertaining and informative, without presenting information in an overly didactic or purely formal way. Visual experiences are enhanced by good storytelling and acoustic information.

❌ An audio guide is not a scientific treatise
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✅ An audio tour must be prepared in a way that is understandable for laypeople. The texts are not identical to label, wall or catalog texts. Instead, the focus is on an optimal listening experience - the more vivid the language, the better the (mental) images and memory.

Various aspects play a role in a good audio guide: the focus is on the attention span and emotions of users and listeners. A clear structure, captivating content and an appealing voice help to create an intuitive introduction and hold attention. Emotional elements such as personal stories or suitable music and soundscapes can create a deeper connection to the content.

What are good examples of audio guides? We share four selected practical examples.
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✅  de Young Museum - Kehinde Wiley: An Archeology of Silence
‍A stunning audio guide was produced for the Kehinde Wiley exhibition at the de Young Museum (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco). Abram Jackson (Director of Interpretation) and Frances Homan Jue (external writer/producer) developed a unique audio experience featuring the voice of the artist and local activists.

✅ Centre de la photographie - Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah: Behold the Ocean
In collaboration with the artist Akousa Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, we developed a narrative audio experience for her solo exhibition at the Centre de la photographie, Geneva. The storytelling offers exciting background information on Adu-Sanyah's artistic process as well as an intimate look behind the scenes.

✅ Helvetia Art Foyer - I like! - 80 years of the Helvetia Art Collection
What does whom like and why? What connects us with the art, the artwork, the artist? What emotions, memories and associations does a work of art evoke? Nathalie Loch organized the anniversary exhibition for the Helvetia Art Foyer and used the Audio-Cult Audioguide Creator. Instead of a classic overview exhibition in the sense of a chronological review with the most art-historically relevant works, personal favorite works by people from art, culture, politics and business are presented.

✅ Migros Museum of Contemporary Art - Material Memories
The exhibition explores the significance of material in art. Central themes of art are discussed. The museum guide to the museum collection was written and narrated by art educator Cynthia Gavranic. In addition, another tour discusses why the museum exists in the first place and what contemporary art means. The Migros Museum relies here on the web-based audio guide platform from Audio-Cult.

✅ Museum für Gestaltung - Oliviero Toscani: Photography and provocation
Director and curator Chrisian Brändle explains in a personal and captivating way why Oliviero Toscani's work is so relevant and influential. The tour is a prime example of how eloquent communication can be understandable and accessible. The Museum für Gestaltung uses the audio guide system from Audio-Cult to tell the stories behind the exhibition.

Whether from an artistic perspective, from the role of the mediator or from a curatorial point of view: a good audio guide offers an authentic and intuitive introduction for the public. And it no longer has to be an expensive museum app. A simple and cost-efficient, web-based audio guide offers the latest technology.