Co-located sharing photo behaviour using camera phones

Photo sharing on camera phones is becoming a common way of maintaining closeness and relationships with friends and family and can evoke pleasurable, enjoyable or exciting experiences. People have fun when sharing photos containing amusing scenes or friends being caught doing something ‘naughty’. Recent research has seen an increase in studies that focus on the use of camera phones, remote sharing using online services or sharing in a home environment using different digital technology. However, studies that extend this focus to the equally important issues of how co-located sharing using camera phones occurs and what influences it are less common. In addition, there is a dearth of research that links photo sharing with user experience (e.g. pleasure, fun, excitement collectively called hedonic experience; HE). The experience of photo sharing, however, does not exist in a vacuum but in a dynamic relationship with other people, places and objects and photo sharing is a social experience. This thesis explores the relationship between sharing practices within different groups of people and the various settings where sharing occurs. It investigates the situations when people experience pleasure, excitement or fun during the photo sharing activity. However, to understand the nature of HE using mobile interactive technology (digital cameras, PDAs, mobile phones) and what influences experiences a prerequisite is an investigation of photo sharing experiences using mobile phones. The HCI contributions of this thesis include dentification of different types of HE and their characteristics; provides factors influencing such experience and the vocabulary to help communicating issues related to HE when using technology. In addition, it proposes an empirically based Photo Sharing Components Model that captures the contributors of the photo sharing experience (Value of Photos, Social Affordances, Place Affordances and Technology Affordances) and the photo sharing scenario notations, which account for the different sharing behavioural phenomena occurring between different groups of people (e.g. family, friends, others) in different settings (e.g. private, public, work). Finally, an account of how this model might be developed by further research is detailed

Many-screen viewing: collaborative consumption of television media across multiple devices

The landscape of television is changing. Modern Internet enabled sets are now capable computing devices offering new forms of connectivity and interaction to viewers. One development enabled by this transition is the distribution of auxiliary content to a portable computing device, such as a mobile phone or tablet, working in concert with the television. These configurations are enabled by second screen applications that provide relevant content in synchronisation with the programme on a nearby television set. This thesis extends the notion of second screen to arrangements that incorporate multiple mobile devices working with the television, utilised by collocated groups of participants. Herein these arrangements are referred to as ‘many-screen’ television. Two many-screen applications were developed for the augmentation of sports programming in preparation of this thesis; the Olympic Companion and MarathOn Multiscreen Applications. Both of these applications were informed by background literature on second screen television and wider issues in HCI multiscreen research. In addition, the design of both applications was inspired by the needs of traditional and online broadcasters, through an internship with BBC Research and Development and involvement in a YouTube sponsored project. Both the applications were evaluated by collocated groups of users in formative user studies. These studies centred on how users share and organise what to watch, incorporate activity within the traditionally passive television viewing experience and the integration of user-generated video content in a many-screen system. The primary contribution of this thesis is a series of industry validated guidelines for the design of many-screen applications. The guidelines highlight issues around user awareness devices, content and other user’s actions, the balance between communal and private viewing and the appropriation of user-generated content in many-screen watching

Blended memory: distributed remembering and forgetting through digital photography

This thesis explores practices and experiences of using photography to support remembering. While the increasing use of photography is well documented, we have limited theoretical understanding of how we approach the taking, organising, and sharing of personal images in relation to memory, and of the opportunities and risks that are created through technological change. Two studies were conducted in which a total of 21 participants were interviewed in front of a sample of their photographs. Study 1 explored photography and remembering around a single, specific event: a wedding. Study 2 explored longer-term patterns of photographic and remembering activity across a range of contexts and events. The analysis showed that the ways that participants engaged with other people and technologies were significant in determining the kinds of photographs that were produced, and the engagement with those photos. Photographic practices were also heavily influenced by the situations in which they were performed and the beliefs and preferences of individuals. The existence of photographs could lead to thinking about particular aspects of the past, but the taking of photographs also altered the experience of what was being photographed. This could be seen as disruptive, depending on the participant’s beliefs about whether photography was a legitimate part of experience. When taking photos, participants pursued a mix of aesthetics, objectivity, and personal meaning, and perceptions of these qualities could influence the way that photographs were used in cueing recall. However, while most participants had produced large collections of photographs, there had been limited engagement with these and taking or having photographs could be more important than looking at them. The thesis concludes that there is value in redefining memory as a kind of activity that emerges through the performance of remembering and that is dependent on the tools used to support it and the situations in which it is performed. From this perspective, photography and autobiographical remembering are parts of the same wider activity, an inseparable blend of internal and external processes. As such, attempts to support our memories should consider both the features of technology and the experience of using it, as well as the ways that we work with tools and people when remembering

Many-screen viewing: collaborative consumption of television media across multiple devices

The landscape of television is changing. Modern Internet enabled sets are now capable computing devices offering new forms of connectivity and interaction to viewers. One development enabled by this transition is the distribution of auxiliary content to a portable computing device, such as a mobile phone or tablet, working in concert with the television. These configurations are enabled by second screen applications that provide relevant content in synchronisation with the programme on a nearby television set. This thesis extends the notion of second screen to arrangements that incorporate multiple mobile devices working with the television, utilised by collocated groups of participants. Herein these arrangements are referred to as ‘many-screen’ television. Two many-screen applications were developed for the augmentation of sports programming in preparation of this thesis; the Olympic Companion and MarathOn Multiscreen Applications. Both of these applications were informed by background literature on second screen television and wider issues in HCI multiscreen research. In addition, the design of both applications was inspired by the needs of traditional and online broadcasters, through an internship with BBC Research and Development and involvement in a YouTube sponsored project. Both the applications were evaluated by collocated groups of users in formative user studies. These studies centred on how users share and organise what to watch, incorporate activity within the traditionally passive television viewing experience and the integration of user-generated video content in a many-screen system. The primary contribution of this thesis is a series of industry validated guidelines for the design of many-screen applications. The guidelines highlight issues around user awareness devices, content and other user’s actions, the balance between communal and private viewing and the appropriation of user-generated content in many-screen watching