The Making of “Paths to the Past”
Dec 2024
Paths to the Past started as an idea in a class discussion. A trail that allowed the player to explore a gallery from different perspectives.
March-May 2025
The project is taken up to be supervised by Dr Edward Madigan. First meetings are swiftly underway.
May 2025
I used books and articles from Royal Holloway’s online catalogue and library, as well as the Imperial War Museum, my own collection, local libraries, Senate House, The British Library and the Women’s Library in LSE.
These texts were important for three key reasons.
Background Knowledge: ensuring that dates, battles, locations, charities, names were correct.
Authenticity: ensuring that the creative elements and references (slang, clothing, music, dances, poems) were all authentic to time period.
Themes: generate an understanding of key themes in historiography of war and conflict, which the trails could explore.
Own picture, Studying war-time calypsos at Royal Holloway
June 2025) I launched my first trail questionnaire, gaining valuable feedback from future play-testers and online advisors.
Here’s what you asked for:
“Real people’s stories though history, making their lives seem more real and tangible”
— NHS Midwife
“Trails that focus on one aspect as opposed to generic background”
— History Enthusiast recently escaped from academia
“Something creative!”
— Music Student
“Illustrations, interactive elements, videos”
— Mom
“I want acknowledgement of the role of women/ PoC, even if the museum itself doesn’t talk about them in its galleries”
— Master’s Student
“Special focuses on women or a focus on LGBTQ+”
— Visitor Experience Assistant
“Characters you can choose along their journey”
— Animation Graduate
“Art books, original artwork of pre production. Scripts and directors’ notes”
— World Traveller
June 2025
I began my primary source research, starting with accessing the Private Papers of Arthur Roberts, who will become the “Tommy” trail. Though some papers are not accessible, I instead accessed them through a secondary text, suggested by my supervisor.
Other Archives/ Collections
Imperial War Museum Sound Catalogue
Imperial War Museum Archives
LSE, The Women’s Library
The National Archives (for finding resources)
Own Picture from a trip to the Imperial War Museum Archive.
June 2025
Mood boards and early concept
After drafting concept one for Arthur, I decided that the bold shapes and colours were too childish. Several participants stated that simple, childish designs dissuaded them from picking up trails, so it was clear I needed to adapt. Equally, there was not enough space on one page for each stop, so it needed to be spread over several pages, without becoming too cluttered.
From this concept, I took the idea of a path and combined it with my experience of opening archive boxes to find each person’s diaries and personal objects mixed together. And so we moved on to concept two…
Early concept was inspired by the bold colours of propaganda posters, which made up the colour palette.
Footsteps mirrored the “paths” concept. My archive research encouraged me to add the khaki “archive folder/army bag” in the centre, where images of themed objects would appear.
Quotes from handwritten sources were typed in fonts similar to each individual author and contained authentic spelling mistakes where used. These were pasted on paper cut outs to make them stand out from the directional text and tasks.
July 2025
Final Concept
Happy with the response to Arthur’s trail design, I created a blank draft trail to base each of my following trails on. I used red motifs as characters entered periods of danger, whether on the front line, the home front, or as prisoners.
With the art style decided, it was time to ask my testing group their opinions on the mechanics of the trail.
I took inspiration from my early concept, especially the central “military bag/folder” but elevated it to a more simple and polished design.
Illustrations used were a combination of my illustrations, based on the rough ink illustrations of soldiers on the front lines, and photographs or illustrations connected to the trail figures. This generally gave it a more crisp and professional look, while making the trail less cluttered and more mature.
Feedback from my supervisor and my early testers was more positive, so I stuck with this core design, changing the central section to match uniform colours.
July 2025
I launched a second questionnaire, asking for feedback on the changing design, as well as insight into the number of stops and tasks for the trails.
I also asked feedback on use of AI for audio elements- it would be challenging to source and hire voice actors as a one-woman project.
Here’s what you said!
July 2025) Based on feedback, I successfully sourced voice actors to read aloud diary, letter, poem and report extracts. Due to the financial restrictions of the project, I turned to my amateur dramatics community for help and recorded some great sound clips to use on the trail.
For full transparency, a preliminary test with AI was conducted, but the artificial voice was not as engaging as a human voice.
Access the script on each character page!
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July 2025) The final hurdle. With sound clips recorded, website almost complete, I began to realise that the creation of XR elements was currently beyond the scope of my project. My participants had listed physical tasks (drawing, quizzes, object finding) above AR elements in the questionnaire- with extract readings being the only exception.
So, I made the decision to limit the digital elements to short videos and sound bites, instead adding opportunities for players to discuss experiences and themes with members of their group. This was driven partly by the challenge of making XR elements work with the trail as well as the over 80% of participants who wanted to play the trail with a group.
July 2025) Finishing Touches
I continued adding finishing touches to the website and held a preliminary test to ensure that the trails worked. The QR codes were functional, though they led to a main character page rather than individual sound clips. This was to keep all files organised for future use.
As a bonus, I contacted a close friend and artist, Rosannamation, to create postcards for each of the characters. Alongside a mini blog and script, the postcards are a reward for finishing each trail! This was inspired by my reading on Gamification, with achievement and reward being key principles.
August 2025
In-person play-testing results are in!
“I love this so much - museums rarely have trails that aren’t aimed solely at kids and families. This is so professionally done and could be used by such a range of people, the multimedia approach really adds to the whole experience. The variety of activities, going from finding objects to listening to drawing is brilliant at keeping the visitor engaged. I think it’s brilliant to be following one person’s story through the galleries too, as there’s so much in the museum that you miss a lot, and it can be overwhelming when you’re going round trying to decide what to look at and read. It’s fits really nicely into the aims of IWM too, as there’s a real focus on personal stories throughout the museum.”- IWM Learning Team.
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