Upptäck historien – discover the cultural history of Stockholm County

Upptäck historien ("Discover History") is one of three apps run by Stockholm County Museum. The museum is part of Region Stockholm and has a digital mission. The aim of the app is to create engaging content that also works as a platform for making the county's historic sites accessible. The content is produced together with the county's municipalities.

Since the launch in September 2020, the content has grown from one guided tour to 30, with quizzes, points games and augmented reality.

Challenge

Stockholm County Museum wanted a tool to highlight the county's many historically interesting places. They were looking for a platform where they could gather different kinds of information about these places, as a way of helping the county's municipalities share their unique stories.

They wanted an app that was informative, entertaining and easy to use – for both administrators and audiences.

Solution

For the launch in September 2020, OnSpotStory built a guide app with the standard features. The app's first guide, Kulturhistoria längs spåret ("History along the tracks"), had stories with images, audio and short film clips about interesting places along Stockholm's commuter train lines.

Since then, Stockholm County Museum and the municipalities have added a large number of guides. Today there are 30 guided tours about medieval churches, Sweden-Finnish stories, castles and manor houses, and rune stones.

To make the content even more engaging, many guides also have quiz questions, and on a couple of guides users can collect points and work their way up from "passenger" to "train driver" by visiting the sites and answering some fairly tricky questions correctly.

In summer 2021, the first guide with augmented reality was launched. In this pilot, users can find out more about three of the rune stones in Huddinge, south of Stockholm, by scanning each stone. The runic inscription, which is often hard to see, is filled in with glowing red paint and read aloud – first in Old Norse and then in modern Swedish. Then an archaeologist appears and explains more about the stone and the meaning of the runes.

The app is constantly evolving, with more AR and other new content added over time.

One of the advantages of the app is that we can create something beyond a digital version of a sign. With different kinds of media and AR, we can give history new dimensions.

Daniel Sahlén, Archaeologist, Stockholm County Museum