Location-based Storytelling in the Urban Environment

Reality is everywhere. It is right there in our face when we wake up and it continues to sneak up on us throughout our day, in the car, in our offices, and at the dinner table. In recent years it has even invaded our TVs through eternal news streams and endlessly boring reality TV shows. However, people cannot live by reality alone. In fact, we spend quite a lot off effort on escaping reality. We daydream and immerse ourselves in imaginary worlds and stories. We immerse ourselves in fiction. Inspired by this view, we report on our research into the design and user experience of a new genre of mobile location-based services, which uses peoples ’ physical surroundings as a backdrop for storytelling as they move around an urban environment. We present a prototype system developed to explore the user experience of location-based interactive stories, and the use of interaction designs aimed at blurring the boundary between reality and fiction. Based on qualitative data from a series of field trials, we discuss potentials and challenges for this class of location-based services

Augmenting the field experience: a student-led comparison of techniques and technologies

In this study we report on our experiences of creating and running a student fieldtrip exercise which allowed students to compare a range of approaches to the design of technologies for augmenting landscape scenes. The main study site is around Keswick in the English Lake District, Cumbria, UK, an attractive upland environment popular with tourists and walkers. The aim of the exercise for the students was to assess the effectiveness of various forms of geographic information in augmenting real landscape scenes, as mediated through a range of techniques and technologies. These techniques were: computer-generated acetate overlays showing annotated wireframe views from certain key points; a custom-designed application running on a PDA; a mediascape running on the mScape software on a GPS-enabled mobile phone; Google Earth on a tablet PC; and a head-mounted in-field Virtual Reality system. Each group of students had all five techniques available to them, and were tasked with comparing them in the context of creating a visitor guide to the area centred on the field centre. Here we summarise their findings and reflect upon some of the broader research questions emerging from the project

Augmented reality and mobile learning: the state of the art

In this paper, we examine the state of the art in augmented reality (AR) for mobile learning. Previous work in the field of mobile learning has included AR as a component of a wider toolkit for mobile learning but, to date, little has been done that discusses the phenomenon in detail or that examines its potential for learning, in a balanced fashion that identifies both positive and negative aspects of AR. We seek to provide a working definition of AR and examine how it is embedded within situated learning in outdoor settings. We also attempt to classify AR according to several key aspects (device/technology; mode of interaction; type of media involved; personal or shared experiences; if the experience is portable or static; and the learning activities/outcomes). We discuss the technical and pedagogical challenges presented by AR before looking at ways in which AR can be used for learning. Lastly, the paper looks ahead to what AR technologies may be on the horizon in the near future

Drawing From a Larger Canvas – a Gestalt Perspective on Location-Based Services

Location-based services (LBS) provide mobile users with information and functionality tailored to their geographical location. Within recent years these kinds of mobile information systems have received increasing attention from the software industry as well as from researchers within a wide range of disciplines concerned with the development and use of computer technology. This paper presents a user study of a prototype locationbased service providing an informational overlay to the civic space of Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia. In analysing our field data, we reintroduce the perspective of “gestalt theory”, and argue that describing people’s use of location-based services through gestalt theory’s principles of proximity, closure, symmetry, continuity, and similarity can help explain how people make sense of small and fragmented pieces of information on mobile information systems in context