There’s a wide range of different types of interpretation – from leaflets and outdoor panels to sculptures and events, audio guides and even websites. Broadly speaking, there are four main types:

Personal interpretation  when visitors ‘see’ or ‘meet’ someone face-to-face. Examples of personal interpretation include guided walks, story telling, costumed interpreters, events and activities and ‘street’ theatre 

Printed and graphic interpretation includes leaflets, publications, trail guides, indoor and outdoor panels and exhibitions

Creative on-site interpretation includes 2 and 3D installations such as seating, sculpture and specially designed waymarking, incorporating creative use of the arts

covers a wide range of computer and audio based material including websites, audio guides, podcasts, interactive screens and CDRoms.

Advantages of Interpretive Planning

Although the idea of preparing an interpretation plan can seem a bit daunting, it’s really worth doing as it makes you organise your project and it sorts out a number of potential pitfalls which could sabotage the success of your project in future. In essence, the advantages of preparing an interpretation plan are that it:

•  Identifies priorities for action, so you do the most important things first and other, future, projects will fit in with and enhance your current project
•  Means you’ve thought it all through and have clear aims and objectives
•  Helps to make sure that the different heritage projects happening in your area can all work together to give visitors clear and coherent stories about your site or feature
•  Can help with getting funding for your project, as major funders usually require evidence of cohesive interpretive planning

Interpretive planning– an overview

Planning is the foundation of all good interpretation, which is why many people start off their interpretation project with an Interpretation Plan. It sorts out why you are doing your project, who you are doing it for, what you are going to interpret and how you’ll do it. Equally importantly, it also describes how you are going to manage it and how you’ll know if it’s working.

The following section gives an overview of the interpretive planning process. There is a series of key questions to think about. The processes you need to go through to answer these questions are discussed in more detail in Section E.