Having considered the basic questions around structure, content approaches, hosting and accessibility, the development of the digital format can now progress to the next level of detail and start considering how to tell individual stories at an object level. This requires a decision for a storytelling tools framework that ideally allows for the creation of versatile and sustainably hostable interactive applications that can be incorporated into the chosen website architecture. The challenge in finding such a framework is often times linked to limited budgets and limited available frameworks that are useable at low- to no costs. Thankfully, there are some options that meet the specified criteria and are available to use for free (albeit with some constraints).
The content framework chosen in the ReInHerit project is H5P. H5P is a versatile framework based on HTML5 and JavaScript. It offers a free version as well as a paid version that allows for even more diverse content options. Creating interactive activities with H5P is highly user friendly and the platform has a very active community, including a frequently updated forum. This makes it easy to use and quick to find support for any issues encountered along the way. The free version of the H5P platform offers the option of downloading the created content in the form of file packages that can be hosted locally. This makes it both cost effective and sustainable to use since the hosting of the content is not dependent on a third party platform. The download option is also available on the commercial platform H5P.com, which is also a viable option at a reasonable price for the extended set of features it offers.
Once the storytelling tool framework is selected, the process can now move to selecting the individual tools for each object. This starts with exploring the content type options offered by the selected content framework and considering how they might be applied to the stories that will be told about the objects. The process of selecting a storytelling tool may follow a simple three-step process (as employed for the ReInHerit Digital Exhibitions).
