The Swedish History Museum – making history accessible to everyone

The Swedish History Museum (Historiska museet) in Stockholm has a wide audience, with visitors from all over the world. The museum wanted a simple and efficient system to guide different kinds of visitors through its exhibitions, and a way to take payment for the guides.

Challenge

The Swedish History Museum, like many others, is entirely indoors. It is a large building with a broad audience of school groups, tourists and history enthusiasts.

The museum was looking for a sustainable, long-term solution with a straightforward editing system for updating content easily.

Some rooms in the museum have thick walls that can disrupt the wi-fi connection – something OnSpotStory took into account.

Solution

OnSpotStory created a complete solution for the museum. Visitors who prefer to use their own phones simply open the web app by entering an address in their phone's browser, without downloading anything. Visitors who would rather put their phone away can use a PLUS unit instead – a device available at the museum's reception that works without an internet connection. Visitors pay for the guides at the entrance by buying a voucher with a code that unlocks the content.

The museum especially appreciated that the solution came with a single CMS (content management system) for all its guides, making it easy to change the content of any guide.

OnSpotStory also helped the museum with audio recordings, voice actors and translations.

The audio guide has given the exhibition another dimension. It's very moving to listen to the voices of survivors talking about their experiences.

Susanna Zidén, Project Manager, the Swedish History Museum, on the exhibition "Speaking memories"