pixels
BFA thesis
2020
9 weeks
How could we, through a new way of interacting with our digital photos, increase their emotional value?
At the same moment, the photo is taken, the user has the opportunity to Tag the photo. The first pre-set Tag is Auto tag, which, using A.I, generates an automatic one depending on the motive ad location. The second Tag is Short Time Use, for pictures taken out of practical purpose, only valuable for a shorter period of time. The third option is to use a Personal Tag, created by the user themself.
While opening the photo album the user will see the "Short Time Use" photos displayed on top. This is for them to be accessible but also so that the user would see if they have a photo in that category that they actually would want to keep and avoid it being deleted. The user can also search photos by tags that were either added manually or auto-generated by the photo service's A.I.
The Helper creates different tasks where the user has to sort and make selections among their photos. By performing the various tasks, the user can see their progress through information on how the tasks have contributed to storage gained as well as a more sustainable digital lifestyle.
From the photo collection, that is selected to be kept as memories, Memory Sections can be created by adding text or music. By spending time with the photos that really matter their emotional value increases!
For quantitive research, a survey, asking people about basic facts regarding their mobile photos, was sent out at the beginning of the project. After this followed a more qualitative research phase where both potential users, a researcher within cognition, an owner of a digital photo book service as well as experts within the area of tech and digital media, were interviewed.
I've talked to many who say they have 6000 pictures on their hard drive that they can't sort. It's the same anxiety as having 6 shoeboxes with unsorted photos in the attic. We have now moved that problem away from us by storing all the photos in the "cloud". All of a sudden it's not "me" who has the shoe boxes in the attic but Google.”
Today we don't take pictures for the sole purpose of documenting memories, there is a whole new category of images that we just "wear and tear". A large part of all the pictures we take is only valuable in the moment or during a shorter period of time. The photos can be about communication (eg. a picture of you on the bus sent to a friend only to say that you are on your way), identity creation (eg. to put on social media), or simply as notes to remember something (eg. a picture of a shopping list or a price tag).
Everyone agreed that prototype 3 was the most preferable one. This is because the handling of "swiping" up / down felt simple, and has become a gesture we are used to performing.
The schedule I created at the beginning of the project could not be kept completely as this spring turned out to be very different due to the outbreak of Covid19. This meant, for example, that it was no longer possible to use the school's premises for work. In addition to this, all planned visits, workshops at the partner companies, as well as interviews, were canceled or replaced by online meetings. I believe that if the project had been conducted a bit later when we had already gotten used to this new setup this would have been fine, however, because all was so new, a lot of time was lost in the transition. Nevertheless, these were learnings that forced me to find new opportunities.
If the project were to continue to develop, it would be interesting to look at what happens to photos over time. Both how time affects the value of the photo, as well as the one's relationship to it. This is because an image that does not matter at the moment years later can become very important on an emotional level.
