FM radio: family interplay with sonic mementos

Digital mementos are increasingly problematic, as people acquire large amounts of digital belongings that are hard to access and often forgotten. Based on fieldwork with 10 families, we designed a new type of embodied digital memento, the FM Radio. It allows families to access and play sonic mementos of their previous holidays. We describe our underlying design motivation where recordings are presented as a series of channels on an old fashioned radio. User feedback suggests that the device met our design goals: being playful and intriguing, easy to use and social. It facilitated family interaction, and allowed ready access to mementos, thus sharing many of the properties of physical mementos that we intended to trigger

Remembering today tomorrow: exploring the human-centred design of digital mementos

This paper describes two-part research exploring the context for and human-centred design of ‘digital mementos’, as an example of technology for reflection on personal experience(in this case, autobiographical memories). Field studies into families’ use of physical and digital objects for remembering provided a rich understanding of associated user needs and human values, and suggested properties for ‘digital mementos’ such as being ‘not like work’, discoverable and fun. In a subsequent design study, artefacts were devised to express these features and develop the understanding of needs and values further via discussion with groups of potential ‘users’. ‘Critical artefacts’(the products of Critical Design)were used to enable participants to envisage broader possibilities for social practices and applications of technology in the context of personal remembering, and thus to engage in the design of novel devices and systems relevant to their lives. Reflection was a common theme in the work, being what the digital mementos were designed to afford and the mechanism by which the design activity progressed. Ideas for digital mementos formed the output of this research and expressed the designer’s and researcher’s understanding of participants’ practices and needs, and the human values that underlie them and, in doing so, suggest devices and systems that go beyond usability to support a broader conception of human activity

A holistic design perspective on media capturing and reliving

Copyright © 2016 ACM. People capture far more media than they are able to relive. In this paper we identify the discrepancy between media capturing and media reliving from a design perspective. We propose a holistic perspective, that invites designers of media experiences to considering all three interdependent aspects of the media process: media capturing interaction, specific media, and media reliving interaction. By adopting this view, we aim to ensure that the media that is captured will be both necessary and appropriate for the intended reliving experience. We illustrate our perspective with three design concepts. Finally, in the discussion we present several topics related to media capturing and reliving

Photo mementos: designing digital media to represent ourselves at home

We examine photos in the family home as examples of mementos, cherished objects kept in memory of a person or event. In a ‘memory tour’, we asked participants to walk us through their family home selecting and discussing significant mnemonic objects. With each personal narrative we recorded memento location, i.e. the room, place within the room and any nearby objects. Although photos were not the most popular mementos, when chosen they were highly significant, and often unique. These photo mementos were usually not representational but symbolic, where only the owner knows their many layers of meaning. Photos from different times in the person’s life were strategically placed in different rooms. Their location afforded different functions, e.g. photo mementos in family spaces reinforced family bonds, photo mementos in personal spaces were for immersive reminiscing, whereas those in public rooms had an aesthetic value and to spark conversations with visitors. Finally photo mementos were rarely isolated: they were clustered in displayed albums or stored with other memorabilia in boxes or drawers to represent a stage in life. We explore the implications of these findings by designing potential new home photo technologies, looking at how new designs might support the types of behaviours observed. Through four conceptual designs we examine how photo technology might integrate into the practices and aesthetic of the family home. The concepts led to a set of concluding considerations that need to be taken into account when designing new forms of display technology that are part of a larger domestic photo system

An Experimental study of differences in reading photo books by presentation media: print vs. screen

As photography technology changes, the penetration of digital cameras is increasing, especially among young users. Compared to conventional camera users who print most of their images, digital camera users print about one-third of their digital images (PMA, 2009b, p. 10). Moreover, only 5 percent of camera phone users make photo prints (Henning, 2008, p. 4). One popular photo-finishing product is the photo book. The objective of this research was to determine whether people interacted differently with photographic content presented in print versus on screen. This research was focused on: 1. Time spent interacting with photo books. 2. Differences of recall and recognition by presentation modality. 3. Choices of medium preference. An experimental study was administered at RIT with 64 participants. Half were shown the printed book, and half were shown the PDF displayed on a computer monitor. The results showed that: 1. The average time spent interacting with the book was approximately 5 minutes for both printed book and screen views. There were no differences in the amount of time spent interacting with photographic content presented in print versus on screen. 2. There were no differences in how much participants remembered with photographic content presented on print versus on screen. 3. Overall, 74 percent of participants preferred to keep the printed book. However, relatively more participants selected the PDF when shown a PDF, even though the majority of participants overall selected the book

In the Vernacular: Photography of the Everyday

This is the catalogue of the exhibition "In the Vernacular" at Boston University Art Gallery