Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Newcastle University
Automics: Souvenir generating photoware for theme parks
This paper documents the design, development, deployment and evaluation of an original design concept for souvenir generation, developed in collaboration with industry (Picsolve and Merlin Entertainments). Theme park visitors enjoy taking their own photos using their smartphones but they also value the classic ride photos that they can’t take themselves. ‘Automics’ is a groundbreaking prototype photo-souvenir service that utilises both personal mobile devices and professional photography systems to support the capture, sharing and annotation of digital photos amongst groups of theme park visitors. The design is a highly novel form of photoware, and the first to combine personal and professional modes of photo-capture to create bespoke photo-story souvenirs.
The field deployment and evaluation of the design produced insights about enhancing theme park experience that frame a rich emerging design space of opportunity for the digital economy, inviting new thinking about the production and consumption of souvenirs in an age of pervasive computing, and novel business models. Leading from the design exploration reported in this paper, the Automics system is set to become a commercial reality, currently being developed into a product through a spin-out collaboration between Nottingham and Lincoln universities.
The paper was published at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2012. CHI is the premier venue for publication in Interaction Design (with a 27% acceptance rate) and was awarded a Best Paper prize (awarded to less than 1% of submissions). Durrant was the lead author on the paper and presented it at the conference, and was centrally involved from the outset in the design exploration reported. A comprehensive description of the Automics design can be found at http://www.vimeo.com/76693755; and the design featured in a promotional online video for the broader research programme: http://www.horizon.ac.uk/Horizon-Research (at 2 minutes 41 seconds).
