The ninth annual International Digital Media and Arts Association Conference (IDMAa), held in Savannah, Georgia, last week, included a talk by Brett Oppergaard, “Net Locality: Exploring New Ways of Storytelling and Learning with Mobile Devices at a National Historic Site.”

In his talk, Oppergaard described the advantages of using mobile technology to enrich the experience of visiting a National Park through his experience working on the Fort Vancouver Mobile Project. For example, the layers that an app can reveal help illustrate the layers of time and information in a given space. In testing the app, he found that people who used the app lingered at the site than longer than those with a brochure or with nothing. They also demonstrated more learning. It provided some meaningful validation for merits of the Fort Vancouver Mobile Project.

He finished by advising others designing apps to stay flexible, and don’t get hung up on the time something has taken. Sometimes, you have to scrap your work to come up with a better product in the long run.