Tongariro conservationists hugging apps as well as trees
By Idealog,
The Tongariro Crossing has become the first national park to get its own interactive smartphone app, just in time for the summer swell of keen hikers and walkers.
Pocket Ranger was designed to convey information without cluttering up the landscape with signage, offering maps, photographs and information about the crossing.
“People can download as much information as they want, right there on the track,” said Karen Williams, president of Project Tongariro.
“It also allows visitors to research the area before they arrive and make sure they’re prepared for the changeable weather conditions the region is known for."
She said other parks and organisations had already expressed interest in following the project's lead to develop their own apps.
“We’ve been involved with producing books and brochures about the park for years, but the Pocket Ranger is a real breakthrough.
“With ever increasing smart phone ownership, it made sense to move with the times."
The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is rated as the best one-day trek in NewZealand and listed by many in the top 10 day treks in the world. More than 80,000 tourists walk the crossing each year.
Established in 1984, Project Tongariro is a nonprofit community group that works with the Department of Conservation to promote a wider knowledge and appreciation of Tongariro National Park.
Visitors can download the free Android app from www.tongariro.org.nz/pocketranger (an iPhone version is in the works).
Comments
Chee Pang
Fantastic to see the Tongariro Crossing have a smart phone app. It's a world renowned tourist attraction and hope it will be popular with tourists. I am a keen tramper and did the trek a few years ago and is one of my highlights of my life.
I just downloaded the app and unfortunately although its a start there's a lot that can be improved. The app is more like a website converted into an app. I tested it on a new Samsung Galaxy S2 phone and found the following:
1. Felt the navigation to be cumbersome with small buttons and small text making it difficult to move around the app.
2. It does not make use of the native android back button (pressing it exits the app!) and settings menu.
3. It has some gorgeous photos but are hard to access, not all are full screen and cannot be viewed in landscape mode.
4. The maps feature is good and lots of good content in it but design lets these features down.
Overall its a fantastic initiative however the app can be significantly improved. The design needs to be simplified and navigation improved. Overseas visitors are used to high quality mobile apps thus remember it needs to reflect the target audience.
Hope my feedback has been helpful and look forward to improvements to the app in future updates.
Anonymous comments on this post are disabled. Please sign up to post a new comment.