Places & Trails app platform

Link two or more places in the app to create a trail. Upload the trail route, set the waypoints and add a trail summary. Waypoints can even have their own pop-up window that provide e.g. directions to the next stop. The trail route and associated waypoints are displayed on a map.

Trails are displayed as ‘cards’ – with a summary plus options for distance, time to allows and the number of waypoints – for the user to browse and select.

Our audio tour module can be specified if the focus of your trails will be audio.

All of our apps utilise Google Maps to display place of interest pins, trail routes (and waypoint pins) and the user’s current location (if Location Services has been enabled by the user). Pins can be filtered by category to display only those related to e.g. historic buildings.

Users can switch between street and satellite views in Google Maps using the ‘Change Map View’ button, and the maps can be zoomed and panned as necessary.

Optional extra – offline maps

Google Maps require a connection to the internet to work as the map tiles are held on Google’s servers. If your project area has patchy signal or you’d like something a little more custom then, as an optional extra, offline maps can be bundled with your app. We often utilise OS Open Data and Open Street Map for this purpose because both provide the option to bundle multiple map tile layers within the app that allow zooming. With offline maps we limit the geographical area to keep the app download as small as possible. We can also bundle illustrative maps, so long as they are geographically accurate i.e. match up with the real world.

Why not check out our Ingleborough Geotrails app which uses OS Open Data map tiles merged with British Geological Society bedrock data to provide a visual representation of the world above and below ground?

When an app user enables Location Services (during the app install process) the app will use GPS to show the user where they are on the map and their relationship to places of interest. The app can then calculate when a user enters a Place ‘trigger zone’ and notify the user there is content to access.

Via the sliding menu, the app will also display the nearest place to the user, and the distance (as the crow flies). If the app contains a Place List this can be filtered to sort Places by distance from the user (and alphabetically).

GPS can also be utilised to automatically ‘check’ app users into places along a trail; the waypoint pin changes to a pin with a tick for those that have been visited. With our Offers and Rewards plugin (an optional extra) users can be rewarded for completing a trail.

Our app platforms do not store or share any data, including location data.

All major pages are accessed via the ‘burger icon’ that slides in from the left of the screen. Alternatively, a tab bar system at the bottom of the screen can be employed if 5 menu items or less are needed.

If the sliding menu option is used, a Closest Place indicator will be present at the top of the menu. This highlights the place closest to the device (and distance from it), but will only work if location services has been enabled by the user. Menu items are arranged in three sections, each with their own header:

• The top section contains the core modules of the app e.g. Map, Trails, Place List etc.
• The middle section contains information pages, such as the Home page. Extra pages can be created in the CMS to be added to this section and are made up of flexible content blocks (see Rich content pages)
• The bottom section contains the Settings and Content Update button. The app will automatically check for updates when it is opened. However, the Content Update button is useful for Content Managers who want to instantly pull through and check new content updates.

The onboarding process starts once the app is downloaded. It begins with the user allowing/denying the app access to location services, notifications etc. Suitable explanations are displayed to explain why these permissions are required e.g. The app uses Location Services to show your position on the screen, tell you how far away places are and alert you when you are near a place of interest. The final stage of onboarding is content download. Some content will be bundled with the initial download – a requirement of both Apple and Android – but the app will regularly communicate with the CMS to check for any updates.

Once onboarding is complete the user can use the app.

Our intuitive password-protected, web-based Content Management System is simple to use ensuring you can easily edit existing content and add new updates when you need to. Once the changes have been made they will be pushed to your app in real time.