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May 26, 2004

Social Use of Photos

Nancy is giving a talk on this topic, from Action Theory to a real case study.

How do we do user-centered design for emerging technology? In our project on networked, programmable, mobile imaging devices, we are empirically investigating the social uses of personal photography. Our goal is to better understand and design for the uses of emerging networked imaging technologies by adapting social science research frameworks that have been used to explain the successes of technology retroactively.

what people take picture of?
family, travel, art etc...
What people do with photos?
1, Throwing them around, 2, album, 3, storage. (Why people feel guilty? There is an established social norm of expectation of how these photos should be organized.)
and 4, story telling: (it is a event. Who participate in that situation is important here. )
5, put on website (publishing) , including collective photoblogs & themes.

social use of photos
1, memory: off-loading memories, etc...
2, relationships: representing, creating new relationships etc.
3, self-expression, self presentation

Media: suddenly people has large audience

physical, digital, oral
telling story face to face.
mortality is a factor here. Person who is going to die, who has a strongest sense of mortality, most willing to have these stories telling became enduring activities.

Surprising Observations:
1, attachment to prints
2, reluctance to annotate photos
etc...

Open Issues:
exploding volume
increased # of sources - by orders of magnitude
blurring between public and private
bringing together different media
production does not mean consumption. (people like to write blogs does not mean they want to read them.)
etc...

Posted by Xiao at May 26, 2004 04:33 PM

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