Bringing centuries of history to life through an immersive digital visitor guide
Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) manages six of the UK’s most iconic historic sites — including the Tower of London and Kensington Palace — welcoming millions of visitors annually. They needed an engaging, accessible Digital Visitor Guide to enrich the on-site experience with storytelling, orientation, and interactive content.
The core challenge was designing a tool that enhanced the physical visit — not distracted from it. It had to work across a wide demographic, support multiple languages, and reflect the grandeur and legacy of each palace, while introducing modern digital features such as augmented reality and live event support.
As lead UX designer, I was responsible for delivering a guide that was intuitive, immersive, and inclusive — one that brought history to life without overwhelming visitors or undermining the authenticity of their surroundings.
Experience design challenges:
- Ensure the digital layer complements rather than competes with the in-person experience
- Design for accessibility and inclusivity, across age, ability, and language
- Support location-aware content and live event integration
- Balance rich content with simple, intuitive navigation
Project objectives:
- Create a responsive guide usable across six palace sites
- Enable seamless navigation and wayfinding on-site
- Provide high-quality audio and visual storytelling
- Support emerging digital features such as AR and location-triggered content
This was a complex, multi-stakeholder project that required careful collaboration between UX, technical delivery, content teams, historians, and frontline visitor staff. Our goal: to create a beautiful, usable, and immersive guide that felt like a natural extension of each palace visit.
I began by partnering with HRP’s digital and content teams to define the core feature set and experience expectations across all six palace locations. Key early activities included:
- Aligning with historians and content creators to scope out the educational layer
- Understanding operational needs from visitor teams (e.g. rental logistics, device handovers)
- Reviewing competitor and benchmark museum/guided tour apps
- Conducting an audit of on-site visitor journeys to identify key decision points, drop-offs, and opportunities for digital enhancement
We collaboratively developed a flexible Information Architecture (IA) that could support:
- Audio tours with chaptered stops
- Visual storytelling and galleries
- Location-specific content
- Accessibility settings and multilingual support
I established a bespoke design system and component library grounded in HRP’s brand guidelines. It was crafted to scale across devices and palace locations, and served as a shared resource for content editors and development teams alike.
I then created a functional prototype, which our engineering team transformed into a working proof of concept for real-world testing.
Core flows included:
- Language and accessibility onboarding
- Wayfinding/navigation to exhibits
- Audio playback and interactive visuals
- Real-time location-based triggers
To validate our direction, I led an extensive three-day testing programme on-site at the Tower of London, working closely with HRP’s visitor and technical teams. I planned and delivered the full testing process:
- Drafted a test script, observation checklist, and survey questionnaire
- Facilitated in-person sessions with paying visitors across age groups
- Worked with staff to recruit participants and support logistics
- Gathered observational and qualitative feedback on navigation, clarity, usability, and content experience
From this, we captured key behavioural insights that directly shaped our prioritisation for launch. For example, we found that audio-only navigation wasn't sufficient in large open spaces, prompting us to rethink visual cues and route indicators.
All findings were documented in a detailed insight report and presented to key stakeholders for feature triage and roadmap refinement.
Following refinements, we conducted a second round of in-depth testing at Kensington Palace, with structured focus groups (8–10 participants per session) over two days.
This phase focused on testing innovation features, including:
- Augmented reality overlays using the device camera
- Location-triggered content delivery using geofencing
- Enhanced visual storytelling with layered historical narratives
Each feature was trialled in controlled scenarios and evaluated based on engagement, ease of use, and appropriateness for the heritage context.
This iterative approach allowed us to blend centuries-old storytelling with modern interaction design — giving visitors a truly immersive experience while respecting the historical setting
The Digital Visitor Guide was designed not just as a technological upgrade, but as a complete reimagining of the visitor experience — one that blended the physical and digital worlds into a single, seamless companion tool.
Where the previous generation of audio guides offered a linear, one-size-fits-all experience, our approach prioritised inclusivity, contextual awareness, and adaptability. The new guide was carefully crafted to support a wide range of visitor needs — whether it was a child exploring with family, an international tourist unfamiliar with the UK, an older visitor with limited digital experience, or someone with specific accessibility requirements.
We focused on three core pillars: accessibility, situational awareness, and intuitive interaction. The guide launched with support for eight languages and three accessibility modes, including step-free navigation options, enhanced audio tours, and captioned video content with British Sign Language. The interface was designed with clarity and simplicity in mind, using large touch targets, clear typography, and familiar mobile patterns to ensure confidence across all levels of digital competence.
To deepen engagement and make the experience feel more responsive to the real-world environment, we integrated location-aware features that surfaced relevant content based on the user’s position within the palace grounds. Augmented reality overlays and proximity-triggered narratives helped visitors form stronger connections with the space around them, enriching their understanding of the history being told.
Importantly, this wasn’t just a content delivery tool — it was a thoughtful companion, guiding visitors at their own pace, offering deeper layers of context when desired, and never overwhelming or distracting from the physical experience. By putting users at the centre of the design process and focusing on blending content, context, and usability, the Digital Visitor Guide elevated Historic Royal Palaces’ offering into something truly immersive, inclusive, and future-ready.
The launch of the Digital Visitor Guide delivered meaningful improvements to both visitor experience and operational success across Historic Royal Palaces. By combining inclusive design, user-centred iteration, and cutting-edge features like AR and location services, the guide significantly boosted engagement, accessibility, and overall satisfaction — proving the value of thoughtful digital enhancement in heritage spaces.
Although modest in budget, this project exemplified user-first design at its best — balancing operational needs, historical content, and technical innovation with real-world usability and inclusive access.
From co-creating with historians to interviewing visitors in centuries-old palaces, this was one of the most rewarding projects I’ve led. It not only elevated the on-site visitor experience, but showed how thoughtful, collaborative design can bridge the gap between past and present.
Physical context is everything — design for what users are doing while using the product, not just where they tap
Testing in-situ matters — on-site behaviours differ from lab settings
Clarity beats cleverness — especially in multilingual, multi-accessibility experiences
Involve more non-English and neurodiverse users in early testing rounds
Prototype more edge-case scenarios — such as low signal areas or crowded spaces
Consider offline-first functionality earlier in the process to support overseas users with limited data access