Communicating History, Deepening Knowledge

The Allied Museum in Berlin-Dahlem plays a unique role in presenting the history of the Western Allies and the Cold War. Nowhere else is the transformation of former enemies into the protectors of a young German democracy illustrated more vividly.

Alongside the famous candy bomber and an original Berlin Airlift aircraft, visitors can also explore Checkpoint Charlie and an American-British espionage tunnel.

To support the interpretation of this defining period in the history of Berlin, Germany and Europe, the museum now offers a multimedia guide. Visitors can borrow it during their visit or access it online before or after their museum experience via a Progressive Web App (PWA).

A conversation between Veit Lehmann – Education and Interpretation, Allied Museum – and Daniel Franz – Designer at tonwelt – guiding solutions.

Daniel Franz: Mr. Lehmann, the multimedia guide, available both as an on-site rental device and as an online Progressive Web App (PWA), is being introduced at the Allied Museum these days.

This marks the end of a development process that lasted around a year, during which you undoubtedly gained a fresh perspective on your museum's exhibits – their historical significance as well as their ability to communicate meaning within the context of a multimedia guide.

What surprised you most during this process?

Veit Lehmann: What surprised me most was how many stories still remain untold and how many new ways of interpretation become possible through an application such as the multimedia guide.

Thanks to the app interface, we are no longer limited to audio content alone. We can also provide texts, images and videos. This gives us the opportunity to rethink and experiment with the relationships between the individual objects in the museum.

Thanks to tracking, we can also understand whether visitors are actually making use of the content we provide.

Daniel Franz: Within each stop of the guide, you combine audio tracks with historical images – sometimes presented as slideshows – along with in-depth texts and additional background information.

To organise all of this content, we spent a great deal of time refining the guide's interface and made numerous adjustments to the underlying framework.

Through this process, I came to know the exhibits primarily from a design perspective.

We deliberately chose a very minimalist interface, allowing the images enough visual space to make an impact.

Working with you was particularly rewarding because I found someone who clearly appreciates the importance of high-quality imagery – something that is far from self-evident.

As we are exposed to countless images every day, I believe it is more important than ever to give digital images the attention they deserve so that they, in turn, can truly capture the attention of visitors.

Veit Lehmann: The visual presentation of the objects was important for two reasons.

Firstly, clear photographs of the exhibits help visitors orient themselves within the museum. Instead of searching for exhibit numbers, they can simply select the object they are interested in directly from the screen. This is particularly valuable for inclusive visitor experiences.

The traditional number selection system remains available as well.

Secondly, photography gives the objects an additional aesthetic and artistic dimension. They are more than mere documentation of historical events or representatives of a particular process. Quite often, they are also simply beautiful.

Daniel Franz: As far as I know, there are already plans for additional applications of the multimedia guide. The visitor devices are intended to be used for film screenings with synchronised video playback, and you are also working on introducing augmented reality experiences for your visitors.

At launch, the guide is already available in German, English, French, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. A tour in Easy Language and a children's tour are currently being developed.

The multimedia guide forms part of your museum's broader digitalisation strategy and complements your existing interpretation programme.

How would you describe the educational approach of the Allied Museum, and where does the multimedia guide fit into that concept?

Veit Lehmann: Inclusion and integration are central priorities for the Allied Museum.

Despite shrinking budgets for education and interpretation, we want not only to maintain our current standards but also to make the museum more accessible to an even wider audience.

Alongside new guided tour formats and outreach activities, the multimedia guide provides a low-threshold solution that enables larger groups of visitors to engage with what the museum has to offer.

From the very beginning, affordability was an important consideration. The PWA version is available free of charge and offers unrestricted access to all content. Visitors who do not have a smartphone can borrow a multimedia guide from the museum.

The multilingual offering is another key element. With six additional language versions currently available, we are reaching entirely new visitor groups who are already making extensive use of the Progressive Web App.

Finally, the multimedia guide is intended to further promote inclusion. On the one hand, visitors can listen to the content instead of reading it – which is particularly helpful, as our exhibition texts are admittedly quite small. On the other hand, we also provide content in Easy Language.

We hope that the usage statistics will help us better understand the needs of different visitor groups and identify further opportunities to improve accessibility.

We see the multimedia guide as just one step within a broader strategy of digitally presenting and continuously developing museum content – an approach that will ultimately benefit everyone with an interest in our museum.

This text was originally published in German. The English translation provided here was generated using AI.