Tandem

Northern Ireland Community Archive Online Trails

The Northern Ireland Community Archive (http://www.niarchive.org) is a mechanism to collect, preserve and disseminate the wealth of stories and materials which relate to localities round Northern Ireland. It has the potential to help visitors to uncover our stories, connect with local people and places and follow specific interests within a broader framework.

This project required us to bring our interpretive design expertise to a multi-disciplinary team in order to deliver a high-end and versatile web-based product within a relatively short space of time. We brought together digital assets from the archive to curate three distinct and discrete trails to help a range of users, particularly knowledgeable visitors and engaged locals, to explore local areas and their tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

Working in close consultation with the client and the developers at Front to profile the likely needs and interests of the anticipated end-users, we outlined an interpretive strategy for the overall project that explained the product and related the three tours to each other within the broader context. We helped develop the tone and voice of each trail, and refined the content a number of times to create a compelling and engaging narrative that encourages users to read on and delve deeper.

Scope

Project Initiation
& Scoping

Stakeholder Interviews
& Workshops

Content Workshops

Social Media
Consultation

Design Consultation
for Home Page

Scoping Mechanisms for
Future Trail Additions

Interpretive Content
Strategy for 3 Pilot NICA
Web-Based Tour Products