How do we approach your project
Our Process Tried tested and always improving
The process for creating our virtual tours is roughly the same for each but then again, every project can be different in its intended use and hence how we might approach it. Each is tailored to what you need but no matter what, we ensure the highest quality, premium product. We do more, we care more and for that, you will get the best. Head over to the About Us page to discover more about our commitment to the highest quality.
We understand schools and businesses’ needs and are always suggesting ways to improve tours, add new content and bring innovation to the project.
Our process is sensitive to the busy lives of marketers and we take on a lot of the extra work that most agencies would ask the client to do. This allows us to focus on the quality of the build and our clients to focus on their own work. These larger projects can be time-consuming so we streamline our process. Leave the creativity and checks to us!
Photography
We identify the tour’s use from a marketing and communications standpoint so we know what media we need to capture. With our help, the client identifies what spaces to capture in 360º which results in a room list. We provide advice, checklists and documents to share with stakeholders to aid in the preparation, staging and being 360ML ‘tidy’. We also provide risk assessments and our plan for the photography shoot day(s). Most photography is done is done in 2 days, usually with no pupils present.
When it comes to editing, we do more than your average photographer – a lot more! We apply HDR and carry out numerous post-production techniques -stitching, colour-correction and grading, white balance, denoise and we Photoshop edit just about anything. Standard edits include sky replacement, grass replacement, removing/adding objects. These special touches are what separate us from others. We can also supply virtual staging which is creating objects in the image that do not exist but are photorealistic.
We do all the hard work and pay special attention to the details and edits required to perfect the images.
Creative
Similar to a website build, a design kickoff and briefing stage always start a project, which leads to an iteration or two of design ‘look and feel’ and then a build process of coding and user behaviour management with attention paid to UX and UI which results in a Preview Stage of the tour for the client.
As every tour is bespoke built, we are taking special care to set the ‘start view’ in every room, linking spaces together to create a journey through the school and looking at the tour as a user, rather than as the builder. The tour build goes through several stages with amends requests allocated at every step of the way so the client feels in control of the end result.
The design of each tour will be on-brand to your business, using your colours for all the elements such as icons, arrows, close x’s photo albums, video players.
Content
With the base layer of photography and linked rooms in place and agreed, we then take the client’s content and embed that content into the relevant rooms and menus to create a journey, things to experience along the way as a user explores the spaces.
Having content that is engaging is the key to this stage and we offer guidance on what and how much is needed and we do think more is more. Most projects will allow for at least one content hotspot per room, and many projects will have more.
We feel it’s what we put in the rooms that hold the most value so we encourage adding all types of content – from images and video to narration from pupils to diegetic sounds and 3D model embeds.
Rounds of amends are offered for the process to be collaborative and so the client is 100% happy with the finished product.
UX and UI
Ensuring responsive design and compatibility on all devices and browsers for best UX/UI. The tour needs to be accessible on all devices, and all browsers and how the icons and 360ø images behave in each can be different so it’s important that we test how different elements look and act on a mobile phone, tablet and a desktop. Looking for behavioural anomalies is an integral part of this process and one we often see skipped.
Upon request, we also prepare our tours for a VR mode tour to be viewed in a VR headset for clients to use.
Optional Phase Two of any project is to add more content or change existing content as time passes. We also offer Phase two projects of Gamification. This is a process where we make an alternate version of your tour that is a game for kids to play, enticing them to explore the content to ‘find answers’ to questions, in the form of a fun interactive game.
