Supporting (Mobile) User Experience at a Rural Village ‘Scarecrow Festival’: A Formative Study of a Geolocated Photo Mashup Utilising a Situated Display

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a novel application focus for the web2.0 paradigm of user generated mashups of geo-tagged photos, Here we are interested in photos captured by multiple participants (via their mobile phones) at a community event. Typically, current approaches focus on the production of a digital artefact, viewable on a web page, which supports a post-event reviewing activity, e.g. enabling a user to view photos (taken at the event) geolocated on a Google map backdrop. Our approach – investigated through the use of an exploratory prototype – supports participants at a community event as it takes place. The particular community event studied in this paper is that of a ‘Scarecrow Festival’ held by a rural village in the North of England. The prototype received positive feedback from attendees of the event including those who took and uploaded photos and those who watched the photos appear ‘live’ on the mashup presented on a situated display in the event’s ‘Big Tent’.