| Abstract | 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. |
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