berlinHistory

Mockup Phone und Tablet der Berlin History App für Banner für Referenzseite

Services

Project Management, Development

Technology

Android, iOS, Backend

Client

berlinHistory e.V.

Year

2018 – today

WHAT WAS KARLMAX’S ROLE IN THE PROJECT?

Karlmax Berlin was responsible for the implementation of the apps on Android and iOS as well as for the backend, which provides the apps with data.

Why does the user need the app?

Because it gives comprehensive information about Berlin’s history, and brings it to life for the user to experience.

What can the app do?

berlinHistory is an app that consists of three main parts:

  • a directory of points of interest (POI),
  • tours on historical paths,
  • and a wealth of content covering the entire history of Berlin.

Within the app, there is an interactive and filterable map that can be adapted to the interests of the user, and which authoritatively shows the closest attractions and places of importance.

Screenshot of the Berlin History app

The challenge

The app had to be home to several thousand entries, each with potentially many dozens of additional entries, all in multiple languages.

The historical entries had to be interlinkable, filterable, searchable and accessible with only a few clicks. In addition, the app had of course to be multilingual.

During the tours the user had to be able to find his own historical path through Berlin, or to have it suggested by the app automatically.

How did we proceed?

In the project we went through the individual user stories, building the defining features of the map and the tour function by function. The highly diverse content led us to iterate many designs and proposals.

When the foundations were established and content production had got underway, it revealed the boundaries of some feature definitions, and we went back to the drawing board with our clients from berlinHistory to rebuild the functions.

Screenshot of the Berlin History app

Behind the scenes – or: how history caught up with our own office

Our company’s office has always been on the app’s map, not only on the staging system, but also in later versions (of course, this is above all for the sake of convenience). But with the increasing density of real highlights, from the Brandenburg Gate to the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) and the stories around the Berlin Wall, we realized how omnipresent history is in Berlin. Indeed it is right around us, not least because the historical map which is available in the app as a Pharus map (also to be seen in Babylon Berlin), originates exactly from our location in Bülowbogen. It was designed and printed by a publisher who in the twenties had as his view from Bülowstraße 66 the busy site of the Anhalter Bahnhof, instead of the present allotment garden colony and the beach volleyball field.

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