“Avila Tourism” (“Ávila turismo” in spanish) is the name of the official app to visit Avila, a Spanish World Heritage city. This guide, aimed at all visitors, includes audio and images tailored to the needs of people with visual or hearing impairments. It uses audio description, subtitling and sign language videos in Spanish and offers useful information for people with reduced mobility. “Avila Tourism” has been developed with the support of the Orange Foundation as a part of the Áppside project (www.appside.org). It is completely free and is available for iOS and Android devices.
Currently, the app features five themed tours, among which the “Footsteps of Teresa in Avila” route, dedicated to Saint Teresa of Jesus in her fifth centenary, stands out. In each of the four remaining guided tours, visitors can enjoy the great temples and unique Romanesque buildings of the city, the numerous Renaissance palaces in the vicinity of the wall or the monasteries that link Ávila life with Queen Isabella of Castile and the Sephardic past of the city through its streets and squares. The application also includes a tour of the main accessible monuments for disabled people.
For visitors who do not wish to commit to a particular route, the app includes a “complete” route which allows visitors to advance through the various areas of the city without losing any of the content included on the previous thematic routes.
The “Accessibility” option gives the user the following options: subtitling, videos in Spanish Sign Language (LSE) or audio description (AD). The routes option lets the user choose his route directly using LSE. By activating the “Directions” option, the app will guide the user from his location to the point of interest selected. As an alternative to the GPS function, the application provides graphical guidance and maps for each of the proposed routes, without having to rely on an Internet connection.
THE ÁPPSIDE PROJECT
Driven by the Orange Foundation and GVAM since early 2014, the Appside project promotes the creation of guided visits applications that allow for the preparation of the visit and let visitors discover the most representative features of the Spanish cultural heritage independently. These apps are intended for all visitors and people with visual or hearing impairments can also use them: they include captions and videos in Spanish sign language for the deaf and audio descriptions for the blind or other vision impairments.
To date, Áppside has agreed to develop an accessible app for each of the 15 World Heritage Cities in SPAIN?? and has been implanted in the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, the Lazaro Galdiano Museum of Madrid, the Alcazar of the Christian Kings of Cordoba, Malaga’s Carmen Thyssen Museum, the Museum of Nature and Man of Tenerife and the Provincial Delegation in Cuenca.