Mobiphos: A study of user engagement with a mobile collocated–synchronous photo sharing application

Photographs have always been artifacts for creating memories and engaging in storytelling activities with others. To date there has been much research in the HCI community towards sharing of both analog and digital photographs. With recent advances in network technology further research has been done with photos being shared almost immediately after capture. However, most of the research has focused on synchronous sharing with groups of distributed users and little has been done to focus on how synchronous capture and sharing could benefit a group of collocated mobile users. To help start exploration in this area we have created Mobiphos. In this article we present how synchronous capture and sharing affects how groups of mobile, collocated users engage with their environment and each other while touring a city. We also discuss the design guidelines of Mobiphos and the implications for future photoware for the mobile, collocated context.