The Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) has been trialling its new app for the ‘Tagging Communities’ project.
The project, which received £56,900 from the Heritage Lottery Fund earlier this year, focuses on six areas across Liverpool and aims to delve into the last 150 years of history.
The new app, set to be released in January 2016, brings together personal stories and history from local people, animation, films, and maps old and new to breathe life into Liverpool’s history.
Community groups, schools, residents, and military veterans from Anfield, Everton, Vauxhall, Kirkdale, Garston and Speke have all been involved in the project throughout the year.
In preparation for the looming app launch, walking trails are being trialled this week in the different areas of Liverpool. On Monday, the Vauxhall and Kirkdale trial was walked by Digital History Older Peoples group and on Wednesday the Everton trial was walked by Veterans in Practice, Blind Veterans UK and the Bradbury Field’s Visually Impaired.
After the walk, a spokesman of the Bradbury Fields Walking group for Visually Impaired and the Blind said: “I can’t believe the story I heard about the Queens Head Hotel. It was the birth place of Everton FC so I can’t believe it ever got knocked down. I learnt something new today about Liverpool for sure!”
In order to make the app user-friendly for all people living in or visiting Liverpool, FACT found it very helpful to have visually-impaired people take part in the trials. learning more about what needs to be added to make the app as optimum as it can be.
Liz Wewiora, FACT’s Communities Programmer, told JMU Journalism: “The user testing event was as much about FACT and the veterans group learning more about the walking group as it was the walking group finding out about our app.
“It was great to have the group test the project out from the perspective of a visually impaired user and it was all great and useful feedback which we can implement for our upgraded version at the end of January 2016.”