Write audio guide stops that visitors listen to the end
The ten rules Muvo's content team follows so each stop holds a visitor standing in a gallery: one idea, a hook, about 90 seconds.
- For:
- Admins, Editors
- Updated
- Updated October 25, 2026
- 3 min read
- 3 min read
Most audio guides that nobody listens to are not badly researched. They are written to be read. A catalogue entry lets the eye go back, skip and skim; a voice is heard once, in order, by someone standing up, with noise around them, deciding whether to move on. This article sums up the standard Muvo's content team writes to. Use it as a checklist before you publish a stop.
Why a perfect catalogue text fails in the ear
| Text to read | Text to hear |
|---|---|
| The eye can reread, go back or skip | The ear gets it once, in a straight line |
| Long clauses and brackets are fine | One idea per sentence, one breath per sentence |
| Dates and measurements are taken in at a glance | «Oil on canvas, 112 × 86 cm» is a whole sentence of nothing |
| Jargon can be looked up | An unexplained term breaks the listening |
| Impersonal tone | You speak to the visitor: «Look at…» |
| The reader looks at the page | The listener must look at the piece: the text guides their eye |
The ten rules
One stop, one idea. Ask yourself what the visitor should remember about this piece. If there are two answers, write two stops.
About 90 seconds, two minutes at most. That is around 200 words in Spanish or English. Keep the full two minutes for the two or three key pieces of the visit.
The whole guide lasts half the visit, or less. If people stay an hour, 30 minutes of audio is plenty: about 15 to 20 stops.
The first sentence directs the eye or asks a question. Never open with the author, the date and the technique.
Tell stories with people and tension. A decision, a mistake, a secret or a rivalry is what makes someone wait for the end.
Connect with the visitor's own experience. A comparison of scale or an everyday analogy is worth more than another date.
Three or four facts per stop. Every extra fact is effort for the listener.
Every sentence fits in one breath. Active voice, everyday words, no figures that are not needed. Explain a technical term the first time it appears.
Read it out loud with a stopwatch. If you run out of breath or past two minutes, cut.
Close with an echo and a direction. Send the eye back to the piece, then tell the visitor where to go next.
Shorter stops also cost less. In Muvo, voicing or translating costs one credit per paragraph, so a stop of five well-edited paragraphs is cheaper in every language. See How credits work.
The five most common mistakes
- Information instead of interpretation: the catalogue entry read aloud. All true, none of it gives a reason to listen.
- Trying to say everything: without one idea there is no natural end, and stops grow to ten minutes.
- Starting with the record and not the hook: the visitor switches off in the first three seconds.
- Ignoring length and fatigue: attention drops after about half an hour, so the last rooms get the tired visitor.
- Writing for a colleague: the real listener is a mixed public, on their free time and often in another language.
Check a stop before you publish it
- Can you say its one idea in a single sentence?
- Does the first sentence make the visitor look at something?
- Does it last 90 seconds read aloud, two minutes at most?
- Is every hypothesis said as a hypothesis («We don't know. It may have been…»)?
- Does it end by sending the visitor somewhere?
Once the text works, Generate audio gives each paragraph its voice, and the player highlights the paragraph that is playing. See Generate the AI voice of your texts.
Short of time? Let us write it
If you have the knowledge but not the time to write for the ear, Muvo's content team can write the scripts from your catalogues and notes, and leave the guide published in Muvo. You validate every script and keep the last word. Ask us for a quote: Audio guide writing service.
Any questions? We’re here to help.
Write to us and a person from the Muvo team will answer within one or two working days.