Audio Info or Audio Guide?

Listen to read-out

Tips for the right choice

Whether audio info or an audio guide is the best choice for you depends on your goals and surrounding conditions.

Here are the most important tips on what to consider:

The classic audio guide

we mainly find in museums for culture interpretation, either with special loan devices or as an app for your own smartphone. App solutions require an area-wide, powerful and free Wifi network.
In all cases, you get a ready-made 30 to max. 60-minute “guided tour”. It usually includes 10 to 20 selected stations or exhibits.
At each station, it provides two to three minutes of information, in the form of studio recordings from professional speakers. Often, additional music, sounds or original recordings are played in.
This also explains the high costs of production and the lack of flexibility to make updates.

Conclusion:

For museums and exhibition halls with a corresponding budget audio guides are a very good and proven solution.

For cultural education, audible information is simply unbeatable, because the eyes remain clear for the exhibits!

Innovative Audio Info

Audio Info is produced using Text-to-Speech technology (TTS). Thereby sophisticated algorithms provide the speech output. These algorithms contain all information about the intonation and syntax of a language, and use words and sentences recorded by professional speakers.
Of course, this makes Audio Info much more cost-effective and flexible to produce.
The quality of the speech output was originally only sufficient for navigation systems, automated announcements in public transport or for people with visual impairments. Wrong accentuation caused amusement, the monotonous speech melody was annoying after a short time.
But in the meantime, this technology has also become much better. Nuance‘s TTS Vocalizer 3.5 is currently considered the top product. With it, the voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google and SpeechCode can offer a very pleasant and lively speech, even with detailed audio info and complex content.

Conclusion:

Audio Info via TTS is the right choice for everyone, who wants flexible content and affordable costs. For example, it is also ideal for temporary exhibitions for which the cost of a classic audio guide is simply not worthwhile.

24/7 free Audio Info for your own smartphone is a good choice, especially in public spaces

Where Audio Info has the edge

Infrastructure

In outdoor areas, especially on hiking trails, in nature parks, open-air museums or botanical gardens, audio guides quickly reach their limits: Because without a central, staffed entrance, there is no equipment rental. And without area-wide, free Wifi, there is no free, reliable download of MP3 audio filesQuantity of information

Would you like to offer visitors detailed, in-depth information? Provide information about more than just 20 exhibits? Tell about flora, fauna and views in the middle of the mountains? Or need a solution for your storytelling that is for listening instead of reading?

With SpeechCode you can produce hours of audio information yourself, all from the comfort of your PC. For two or 20 minutes or for 20 hours, the costs remain the same. For example, the city museum of Zwettl produced over 8 hours of Audio Info so that visitors can find detailed and exciting information on all topics and exhibits. And can decide for themselves what they are interested in!
And that for not even € 1.000!

No cell phone reception high up on the mountain? No problem, the Audio Info by speechcode still works!

Text AND speech – everywhere

Due to its low costs and easy production, Audio Info can be used everywhere, not only as an audio guide:
On signage systems, information boards, at natural monuments, on treasure hunts and even in brochures and other print media. Thanks to the printable Speech Code, additional languages or further information can be offered in a very space-saving way.

And above all, Audio Info is accessible to all those, who can’t read or can only read poorly.
Accessibility for people with visual impairments, cognitive limitations or reading difficulties enlarges the target group. This is not only beneficial in tourism, but also for consumer goods and public spaces.

Conclusion:

Audio Info is the ideal tool for greater reach and innovative voice marketing that can be used anywhere. Even where conventional audio guides are not feasible.

Universal Design: A magazine in text AND speech