Andy Crabtree

1

• Collaborating around Collections
• Informing the Continued Development of Photoware

2
Collaborating around Collections

• Understanding collaboration around collections of
  artefacts
• Exploring ways in which collaboration around
  collections of objects may be augmented and
  enhanced by computer support
• Section dedicated to the topic at CSCW 02
• Grinter et al. - museums and supporting visit
• Hindmarsh et al. - artworks and interaction with
  assemblies of objects
• Frohlich et al. - photographs and development of
  photoware

3
Photoware

• This talk focuses on photoware
• i.e., on the development digital photography
• Look at some current examples and their
  limitations with respect to collaboration
• The salience of examining paper-based photograph
  use for continued development
• Reflect on the findings of ethnographic study

4
Photoware

• Why focus on photoware
• Developing new technologies for the home
• Ethnographic studies of technology use in homes
  in the UK
• Studies reported in design literature (e.g.,
  HOIT, COOP, UbIComp, ECSCW, DIS, JCSCW)
• In addition to communication media and PIM tools,
  photographs a feature of our studies and relevant
  to design

5
Photoware

• Current technologies and their limits

almost all research in how to support
experience sharing with digital data suffers from
the limitations of current display
technology. Shen et al. Sharing and
Building Digital Group Histories
6
Photoware

• Supporting experience sharing

While such interfaces permit sharing amongst a
group, it is not at all clear how they support
sharing amongst individual group members, however.
7
Photoware

• Supporting collaboration between individual group
  members

Conversely, the small size of such devices limits
group interaction and highlights the need to make
photoware devices interoperable.
8
Photoware

• So whats the problem?
• Obviously all we need to do is combine devices

Perhaps the biggest gap in the photoware market
today is support for simple methods of remote
photo sharing. People are already successfully
exchanging digital photos with each other
asynchronously, but reverting to use of the
telephone in order to discuss them live with
remote partners. Hence there is an opportunity to
enhance current photo-sharing practices over the
telephone with what might be called
photo-conferencing tools. These might be
telephone, PC or TV centric, and should support
the kind of active audience participation that is
typical of co-present photo sharing. Frohlich
et al. Requirements for Photoware
9
Photoware

• So what are we going to do?
• Frohlich et al. not only look at the digital
  but also how people interact with paper-based
  photos
• Explicate image-based communication practices
• By investigating photo talk

The study of naturalistic conversation within
Conversation Analysis has begun to identify
salient features of storytelling, but in the
absence of photographs and other image-based
materials.
10
Photoware

• Investigating photo talk
• Complementing ethnographies, interviews, and
  self-reporting techniques
• Interactionally embodied photo-talk
• Examining sequences of talk and practical action
  in which photos are shared

11
Photoware

• Some precursors to interaction

12
Photoware

• Interactionally embodied photo talk the
  phenomenal field

13
Photoware

• Some observations from the phenomenal field
• Sharing is an achieved feature of collaboration
• Features of achievement
• Production of accounts - photos as resources for
  talk
• Distribution and coordination from control
  centre (group views, raising conversational
  topics)
• Movement of photos to and from outlying
  positions (personal views, exploring topics away
  from group)
• Dynamics of sharing (divisions and
  sub-divisions of group)

14
Photoware

• The phenomenal field

15
Photoware

• Some more observations from the phenomenal field
• Ad hoc assemblies and recipient design of photo
  talk
• Establishing and maintaining mutual sense of
  account in conversation the importance of
  gesture
• e.g., pointing at an area of a photograph is
  accompanied by tapping on the area to establish
  the precise sense of a question.
• or moving the pointing finger from area to area
  to draw connections between images
• and moving the finger over a photograph in a
  circular motion to indicate that some
  commonality between or grouping of the
  constituent parts of an image.
• Gestures make grammatical distinctions and
  provide a moment-by-moment orientation to
  assemblages, giving talk its situated meaning

16
Photoware

• So what of these mundane events?
• Some implications for design
• Local practices of use, distribution and
  coordination provide a resource for thinking
  about supporting the achievement of remote
  sharing or sharing at a distance

17
Photoware

• Local practices of sharing
• Storage and retrieval ecological habitats and
  access control
• Physicality of photos an ecology of practices
  that allow for distribution and coordination
• Digital alternatives and the potential of
  disconnection between ecologies of praxis that
  give photos their meaning on occasions of their
  collaborative use
• Key concern to move beyond storage and
  manipulation (networking and tangible techniques)
  to also consider developing support for the
  production of accounts

18
Photoware

• Supporting the production of accounts
• Developing distributed means of multiparticipant
  telecollaboration
• Including, telepointing and telepainting
  software to support gestural practices
• And underlying data spaces to permit
• Ad hoc assemblies at a distance
• Distribution from control centres to outlying
  devices
• And between outlying devices
• Coordination protocols for management of
  distribution (in and out)

19
Photoware

• Related issues
• Duplication and support for ownership, transfer,
  and control
• Privacy and security gatekeeping
• Awareness mechanisms to support tracking

20
(No Transcript)