The National Archives in Kew is home to some of the most significant historical documents in existence. When the team set out to create Love Letters – a free exhibition exploring over 500 years of human devotion, longing and heartache – they needed a digital solution which could bring those documents, and emotive stories, to life for a modern audience. They chose Smartify.

The Brief

Love Letters was an ambitious exhibition spanning correspondence from royalty and parliamentarians to literary icons and anonymous voices captured across five centuries. It covered forbidden relationships, family separations and declarations of love in poems, drawings, official memorials and wills.

The challenge was clear: how do you translate deeply personal, handwritten documents into an experience that resonates with contemporary visitors? The National Archives needed an engaging, accessible interpretation layer that honoured the intimacy of the material while drawing broad public audiences through its doors.

The Solution

Smartify Studio, our in-house content production team, developed a fully bespoke audio tour for Love Letters, combining rigorous historical content with warm, human storytelling that matched the emotional weight of the exhibition itself. The content was then hosted on a Smartify-built custom web app, a mobile application that gives visitors an intuitive, accessible digital guide they could follow at their own pace and from their own device.

Together, the audio tour and web app created a seamless interpretive experience that could travel with visitors through every section of the exhibition, deepening their connection to the stories on display. The solution required no hardware installation and had no app download barrier – just a QR scan, and visitors were immediately immersed.

Key elements of the solution included:

• A bespoke audio tour, produced end-to-end by the Smartify team to reflect the emotional range of the exhibition – from tender private letters to correspondence with life-or-death consequences.

• A custom Smartify web app, developed to the exhibition identity, providing stop-by-stop digital interpretation accessible via QR code.

• Content designed to be inclusive and accessible, allowing visitors to engage with complex historical material at whatever level of depth and speed they chose.

"The exhibition run broke all records at the National Archives and the exceptionally high levels of satisfaction from visitors has been extraordinary. The audio tour in particular brought real warmth and humanity to the exhibition, and we're thrilled with Smartify, the visitor numbers and the feedback we've received."

– John Carmichael, The National Archives UK

The Results

Outcomes included:

• Record visitor attendance for a free National Archives exhibition.

• Exceptionally high visitor satisfaction scores, with specific praise for the audio tour.

• A high tour completion rate of 73%

• A seamless, frictionless digital experience 

Love Letters delivered record-breaking results for The National Archives. Visitor numbers far exceeded expectations, making it one of the best-attended free exhibitions the institution has hosted. But it wasn't just the numbers that stood out. Visitor satisfaction scores were exceptionally high, with audiences praising the exhibition's emotional depth and the quality of the interpretive experience.

By meeting visitors on their own devices and at their own pace, Smartify helped The National Archives reach and resonate with more audiences than ever before.