Somebody talking, and how to make them stop.
Every stop has a narrated track: what you are looking at, what happened there, and what it costs. It is off by default, it is written before it is read, and there is a transcript on every page whether you play it or not.
Written first, recorded second, and off by default.
Nothing on this walk plays without being asked. Not the narration, not the frame sequence, not anything with sound in it. A website that starts talking at somebody in an office is a website that gets closed.
The tracks are written before they are recorded, which sounds obvious and is not how most audio guides are made. A written script can be edited, checked against the numbers on the page, and published as a transcript that says exactly the same thing as the audio.
The voice is somebody who works here rather than a professional reader. It is worse in the conventional sense — there are pauses, and somewhere on the wall track a tractor goes past — and it is considerably better in every sense that matters.
What the guide is.
Each track
- Length
- 90 seconds to 3 minutesOne per stop, twelve in total.
- Written
- Before it is recordedAnd published as a transcript, verbatim.
- Voice
- Somebody who works hereRather than a professional reader.
- Autoplay
- NeverOn any stop, in any circumstance.
- Transcript
- On the pageIn the reading order, not behind a link.
Audio description
- Separate track
- YesDescribing the plate, not repeating the narration.
- Written by
- A personBecause a generated description of an illustration is a list of shapes.
- Available on
- All twelve stops
- Also as text
- YesSame page, same reading order.
The twelve tracks.
On the farm
G-01 The Gate Narration 0.0 miles G-02 The Farm Shop Narration 0.2 miles G-03 The Yard Narration 0.3 miles G-04 The Big Field Narration 0.8 miles G-05 The Dry Stone Wall Narration 1.2 miles G-06 The Woods Narration 1.6 miles G-07 The Spring Narration 1.9 miles G-08 The Unfarmed Narration 2.2 miles G-09 The Bees Narration 2.5 miles G-10 The Lambing Shed Narration 2.8 milesOff the farm, and labelled
G-11 The Brewery Narration 3.1 miles G-12 The Pub Narration 3.4 milesEvery track has a transcript on the stop page itself. Nothing here needs to be played to be read.
What the guide does and does not do.
Yes
- A written script, published verbatim as a transcript
- A separate audio description track on every stop
- Somebody who works here doing the talking
- Off by default, on every stop, permanently
Never
- Autoplay of any kind
- Music under the narration
- A generated voice
- A transcript that says something different from the audio
In short.
Twelve tracks
Ninety seconds to three minutes each.
Off by default
Nothing plays without being asked.
Transcribed
Verbatim, on the page, in reading order.
Described
A separate track for the plate itself.
The rest of the accessibility work.
Keyboard path, contrast, reduced-motion parity and the things that are easy to forget.
What people actually ask.
The two questions this page gets most, answered without a support ticket.
The cast page names every person and what they are actually responsible for, which is not always what the programme implies.
No. This is an unsolicited third-party demonstration build, not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the businesses it describes.
