The paper describes the development and implementation of software, namely a guide for museums, which can replace or supplement traditional tours. An overview of existing solutions in this area is presented - from global multifunctional platforms to local applications for specific museums. A museum application has been designed and developed for a small historical and local museum considering the specifics of the presented exhibits and allows to convey to visitors all the information about the available museum objects ware, namely a guide for museums, which can replace or supplement traditional. All stages of the development life cycle of this application are described in detail including its approbation in the museum.
The digital transformation in recent years has affected all spheres of public life, including museums, which in the development of the information society are forced to introduce innovative forms of work with visitors, change the ways of providing access to their collections and their distribution. The modern software market offers some solutions for large and small museums, which can be divided by functional orientation into the following groups: - applications for registration, storage and management of collections; - applications for better presentation of collections, increasing the visitors’ interest and expanding their number.
The last ones include virtual and augmented reality systems [
The development of a mobile guide application for a small historical and local
museum called the Zboriv Battle is the main matter. Firstly, a study of existing solutions in
the domestic and global markets of museum software was conducted. Paying attention
to the specifics of the historical event and the presented exhibits in the museum [
The choice in favor of a mobile rather than a desktop application is also obvious.
Nowadays, almost everyone has a mobile phone or a smartphone, which has been
transformed from a means only for communication to a means with multimedia and
advanced functionality [
Using a mobile guide application that contains textual and audio information about the museum's exposition and exhibits is a way to provide information about the museum's exhibits and exposition. The use of the latest approaches and modern information technologies with the involvement of mobile phones will attract more tourists to the museum, improve the quality of received information and as a result it will be a better impression of visiting the museum. Moreover, museums have many exhibits that cannot be placed in exhibition halls at the same time, however, they can be presented virtually using a mobile guide application. 2
It is analyzed the possibilities of some successful world and domestic projects that exist in the market of the museum software.
Guides4Art [
Google Arts & Culture [
The absolute world leader among open platforms providing online guide services
is the ambitious project of the Dutch developers izi.TRAVEL [
Despite the opportunities provided by the described platforms to individual institutions to create their own tours and audio guides, a lot of museums that want to emphasize the originality of their collections and present them vividly, choose the path of developing their own applications.
Among the local applications developed for a specific institution for its needs, it is
noted the mobile application Second Canvas Museo del Prado, developed for the
Prado Museum [
There are several successful domestic developments for local museums and tourist places such as the augmented reality application Tustan AR, which recreates the three-dimensional view of the ancient fortress city during its heyday; Poltava Open project, which allows you to virtually travel through the streets of Poltava, Dykanka, Myrhorod, Reshetylivka and see Poltava region from a bird's eye view; DMH LvivAR mobile application, developed for virtual tours of the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Memorial Museum in Lviv and many other applications. 3 3.1
Search for an exhibit by number, where you can manually enter the code of the exhibit.
Search for expositions and exhibits by keywords.
System settings, where you can select the language, theme, and configure other parameters of the system. 3.2
One of the important stages of building a system is the development of a mobile
application design. The design of the application was developed on the free platform
Figma [
The design was framed in 2 stages. At the first stage, a schematic design of the application screens (Wireframe) was created, which presents the main elements and their location. The next step was the implementation of color, detailed screens and several iterations of specification and editing.
After that, the existing design was modified according to the style of the themes and the OS. There are four versions of the design such as light theme for Android application, dark theme for Android application, light theme for iOS application, and dark theme for iOS application (Fig. 1). Based on the formed list of functions and the developed design, the general designing of system took place. The system was divided into the following modules (Fig. 2):
Data download and deployment module about the museum. The module is responsible for the initial download and deployment of the SQLite database. This module is required so that the application can be used without an Internet connection.
Database module, which is responsible for providing access to data on exhibits, expositions and audio files. This module encapsulates data from business logic and allows you to easily change the data configuration without changing the internal logic of the system.
Module for working with user interface elements, which includes screens with which the user can interact, namely: - a short user guide; - main menu with information about the museum; - list of expositions; - information about the exposition; - information about the exhibit; - audio guide.
Business logic module, which describes the basic logic of the system. The module is responsible for processing commands from the user, changing the state of user interfaces, transitions between screens and working with data. The main functions of the module include: - processing commands from the user; - work with data on exhibits and exposition; - navigation between screens; - filtering and searching of exhibits and expositions; - organization of audio guide work; - work with system settings.
An audio service module that is responsible for organizing a separate service that may exist in the background even when the application is minimized or the phone is locked.
Exhibit code scanning module, which is responsible for scanning QR / Barcodes and manually entering the exhibit code. Thus, the developed structure is based on the modular principle. 3.4
At the initial stage of implementation, it was decided to implement the system for
Android, because according to data for April 2020, Android is used on more than
82% of mobile devices [
The system is implemented for the Android mobile OS using the Android Studio development environment. The Kotlin programming language was used to develop an application. Google, which owns Android, recommends using Kotlin to develop Android applications. Kotlin is a static programming language that can run on JVM compatible devices. Accordingly, Kotlin is a cross-platform programming language, it is compatible with Java and its areas of use include the development of web-based apps, mobile applications, PC applications, etc.
The Android Studio development platform is the recommended environment for developing Android applications. The program runs on various operating systems and is free to use. The platform is based on the IntelliJ Idea Community Edition, developed by Jetbrains.
During the system implementation, the MVP (Model-View-Presenter) architecture was used, which has a clear division at the level of working with user interfaces, business logic and working with data. The system also implements additional modules that are responsible for interaction with third-party services (Fig. 3-5).
Fig. 3. Diagram of the data package, which contains the main classes for working with data A software system model based on the use of the object-oriented programming language Kotlin has been developed. 3.5
To ensure efficient work with museum data, SQLite database was used. This is a free database that is built into the Android OS and can be used freely. The database contains information about the museum, expositions, and exhibits. The database consists of the following tables (Fig. 6): - POI corresponds to an exhibit in the museum. Each element of this type contains unique identifiers for searching audio tracks and photo exhibits. Each of the exhibits is attached to the exposition. - Exhibition corresponds to the exposition in the museum. Each of the exposition contains information about the time of creation, name, and description. - Museum contains general information about the museum, such as name, description, address, etc. - AudioResource contains information about the media resource. Each of the audio resources corresponds to a specific language.
ImageResource contains information about the internal or external image for downloading.
Description is a text description of an object that corresponds to a language. It is used with all the basic elements to support different languages. The information support of the mobile guide application for museums is based on the use of freely used SQLite database. 4
Testing of the mobile application was carried out on the three most interesting exhibits from the point of view of the directorate. The exhibits were allocated to a separate exhibition within the application (Fig. 7). The exhibition includes a diorama canvas "Battle of Zboriv in 1649" by local artist S. Nechay, a copy of the mace of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and a valuable author's publication "Ukraine - the Cossack state" by V. Nedyak (Fig. 8). Each of the exhibits contains a separate screen where you can view detailed information. For example, Fig. 9 presents the image of the canvas, provides technical textual information (author, size, technique, etc.) and it is possible to go to the audio guide, which describes the details of the battle reproduced on the canvas. Information about other exhibits is similarly presented. In particular, the image of a copy of the hetman's mace is presented, which is supplemented by an audio story – the story of the disappearance of the original and the ways of its reproduction (Fig. 10). The structure of a mobile guide application for museums, which is based on the use of a modular principle providing rapid modernization of the built software product, has been developed.
The developed mobile guide application software uses the object-oriented programming language Kotlin and a software model based on this programming language, which allows cross-platform mobile application, the ability to operate under different mobile operating systems and is a distinctive feature of the developed mobile application.
The information support for a mobile guide application for museums is developed and implemented, which is based on the use of freely used SQLite database that will significantly reduce the cost of the software product and store the necessary data about exhibits, system settings, users, etc. The advantage of the developed application is taking into account the features of the exhibits of a particular local museum, which will improve the quality of their presentation, attract new visitors and thus contribute to the preservation of the historical heritage in the region.