Meaning of Objects

Photos are often regarded as meaningful objects in domestic environment. In order to facilitate discussion about the meaning of photos at home, studies of the meanings of objects in domestic environment are reviewed.

Richins [19] divided meanings into private and public. The sources of meaning are in Utilitarian value, Enjoyment, Representations of interpersonal ties, and Identity and

Self-Expression. This relatively similar categorization leaves out the ‘companion’ category, and proposes enjoyment as a separate one. Her paper also presents a thorough analysis of approaches to product meaning and value.

Battarbee, K., and Mattelmäki, T. [20] analyzed 113 stories about meaningful products collected in Finland and divided three main categories of meaningful relationships with products: meaningful tool, meaningful association, and living object. If a tool is needed for a purpose, in which the activity itself, not the hardware, it is sorted in the category of

"Meaningful Tool", such as a foldable hair brush, a mobile phone, and a sewing machine. If a product refers to or carries a meaning given by culture or an individual, it is sorted in the category of "Meaningful Association", such as a Pastilli chair and a wedding ring. If there is an emotional bond created between the person and the individual product, the product is sorted in the category of "Living Object", such as a toy car and a stuffed toy bunny. Battarbee and Mattelmäki also mentioned that people have many overlapping relationship to meaningful objects at the same time.

In "The meaning of things –Domestic symbols and the self", Csikszentmihalyi &

Rochberg-Halton [21] studied the significance of material possessions in contemporary urban life, and of the ways people carve meaning out of their domestic environment. They

interviewed 82 families in Chicago about things that are special for the family members and

the reasons of why those things are special. The “significations” of the special things were coded into 37 categories of meaning. Of all the reasons given for cherishing photos,

Memories and Immediate Family had the largest proportion while no other object had such a high proportion of reasons in these two categories. Photos serve the purpose of preserving the memory of one's close relations more than any other object at home. Photos which bear the image of a departed kin impart a tenuous immortality to beloved persons and provide an identity, a context of belongingness, to one's descendants. In addition, Csikszentmihalyi &

Rochberg-Halton mentioned that the preference for photos shows a dramatic age difference.

Photos meant the most to grandparents and the least to children. Ten percent of the children mention at least on photo as being special, as compared to 22 percent of the parents and 37 percent of the grandparents.

Bih [22] investigated the role that objects have in helping people adapt to a new

environment. Fourteen Chinese postgraduate students going abroad were interviewed one semester after their arrival in New York City. The meanings that students attached to objects, and how the meanings of objects changed during their adaptation to their new environment are discussed. The discussion is placed in the context of person-object relationships and it is emphasized that objects can both reflect and actively affect an individual’s feelings and emotion. Many of the students brought their photos to the new environment with them. One student brought the photos of his parents to encourage him. Two students brought their girl friend's photos that let them feel that their girl friends were still close to them. One student looked at the photos of 'the good old days' when she was in bad mood. One student brought an album of his travel pictures taken in 15 different countries. He said that it was very helpful for the development of social relations. Photos were brought to the new environment to connect with their past experience, present conditions, and future expectations.

Different from the researches mention above emphasized on description and categorization of meaning of objects, Bih focuses on the change in the relationship between human and objects. He indicates that meanings exist in a context of specific personal history and environment, meanings are the results of human-object interaction, meanings are not static,

how meanings change in different contexts and how people attach meanings to objects is discussible. Likewise, in this research, the meaning of photos in the context of the interaction between family members and the changes of the meaning of photos as family life changes are discussible and would be discussed in the following chapters.

These studies above did detailed analysis of the meanings of objects in people’s residence from psychological views. Some of them provided insights into the meaning of photos. The connections between photos and memory, family, achievement, and social exchange are revealed in these researches. Besides, the methods of obtaining the meaning of objects from the users in these studies are also referable. However, their studies did not cover digital photos, so the differences between the meaning of printed photos and digital photos are absent.

2.3 Summary

These studies reviewed above provide different points of view to review photo usage in different contexts and show the diversifications of photo usage. However, the study of

covering both the meaning of conventional and digital photo and photo-related devices uses at home for individual and family is absent. This thesis aims at uncovering the detail of how people interact with photos at home based on Contextual Inquires discussed in next chapter.

Furthermore, some design implications derived from findings are also discussed in Chapter Four to Chapter Six.

3 METHOD

To fully acquire users’ experience about photo usage at home, understanding of users’

behavior and value is critical and indispensable. However, this kind of information cannot easily be learned through traditional research methods such as questionnaires. Thus, instead of collecting a large number of data through survey, a user research method called “Contextual Inquiry” that helps researchers enter the context of users’ daily life and acquire knowledge about user’s experience through interviews and observations about users’ activities is conducted to collect data about daily photo usage at home.

The research method in this research includes collecting data through Contextual Inquiry, analyzing data in a qualitative way, and proposing implications for future photo device and service design. First, considerable issues were acquired from prior researches and transferred to interview questions. Second, the Contextual Inquiry script was planned and profile of the informant families that describes the characteristic of the informant families and their photo experience was formed. Third, informant families were recruited and Contextual Inquiry was conducted. The Contextual Inquiry script was improved between each inquiry. Forth, the inquiries were taped and transferred into transcripts, which were coded into key ideas and interpreted into several themes. Finally, features of how people capture, manage, browse, share, and display photos and their attitudes toward photos at home were presented and the implications for future digital photo device and service design are delivered. (See Figure 1)

Gaining considerable issues from prior researches

Profile of the informant families Drafting interview questions

Contextual Inquiry script Recruiting

Conducting Contextual Inquiries

Transcripts

Interpretation

Findings

Discussion

Design Implications

Figure 1 Research structure of this thesis

3.1 Contextual Inquiry

According to Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt's [23] definition, Contextual Inquiry is a field data-gathering technique that studies a few carefully selected individuals in depth to arrive at a fuller understanding of the work practice across all customers. Through inquiry and interpretation, it reveals commonalties across a system's customer base.

Contextual Inquiry is originated from ethnography, which was originally a research method used in anthropology. In the Contextual Inquiries, researchers observe users’ activities in the real environment they live in or work in to obtain information about the way they live or work.

Contextual Inquiry differs from ethnography in that Contextual Inquiry researchers not only observe people’s activities in the real context, but also conduct in-field interview with the users. During the interview, researchers and users discuss about users’ activities, their motive of these activities, the problems they encounter, and the way they deal with the problems. The interview proceeds in an in-depth semi-structured way. There is a scheme for the interviewer, but no word-by-word questions to follow. The whole inquiry is a process for the researchers and users to explore users’ activity collectively. Users respond researchers questions with self-experience; and researchers ask further questions from users’ feedback. Through the process of Contextual Inquiry, researchers accumulate fuller understandings about the research issues, and keep asking further questions to be answered in the next inquiry. Unlike structured interview and questionnaire, the purpose of Contextual Inquiry is not to confirm the opinion of most users, but to explore users’ work practice broadly.

To understand users’ photo usage at home and uncover users' needs for photo-related domestic appliances, Contextual Inquiries that include in-field interviews and observations were conducted at the informant families’ home. Through in-field interviews with users, firsthand information about people's photo-capture, storage, and sharing behavior and their attitude toward photos under real environment are revealed. Each interview lasted about two hours. The interviews were taped, and photos of their cameras and other photo-related devices, places they keep their photos, their label and annotation on their photo, the photos they

displayed in their home and every photo they mentioned were also taken during the interview

for the researchers to analyze.

3.2 Recruiting Informants

The key feature of Contextual Inquiry is obtaining information of issues concerned in this research through the participation of the users in the real environment. During the two-hour process, discussions with the informants and the representation of informants’ activities help disclosing users’ experiences. Representative users are recruited as informants in Contextual Inquiries to provide rich and firsthand information instead of a large number of respondents for quantitative survey.

Recruiting informants for this research was not easy. Most people hesitated to let strangers enter their home, especially when the strangers need to see their private photos. Therefore, the informants were mostly recruited from acquaintances of the researchers in this research. Thus, they were willing to have interviews at their home. Screeners were sent to each of the

candidate informants. The screener is a questionnaire explains the purpose of this research and consists of a set of short questions, which reveals their photo-related behavior. (See Appendix B) It helps to filter out people who fit the criteria set for the contextual inquiry. The criteria for screening out the informants were the frequency of taking and sharing photos, the variations of using different photo taking devices such as conventional cameras, digital cameras, and camera phones, and the variations of media use for sharing photos such as flipping photo albums together, showing photos with photos frames in the public area, E-mailing their photos, and uploading their photos to the online photo albums. After filtering out informants who fit the criteria, they were asked for exact dates and times for the visit.

In order to explore the photo-related interaction between family members, a family was recruited as an informant unit. According to Kuniavsky’s [25] suggestion, five to eight informants should give a pretty good idea of the target user and should be enough for the inquiry. Therefore eight families were preplanned to be interviewed in this research. However, the number of informant families is not confirmed until the information acquired from the latest informant family is similar to previous inquiries very much. After the acquired data

reached “Theoretical Saturation”, no new informant family is added. Finally, the contextual inquiries were conducted with nine families in north Taiwan, especially in Taipei and Hsinchu area. In order to gain understandings of photo usage in different family life stage, these

families are picked of different composition, including young couples with preschool children, middle-aged couples with and without their children living at home. (See Table 1)

Table 1 Profiles of informant families

Family Composition Camera Storage Sharing

1 Middle-aged couple

5 Middle-aged mother 7 Old-age couple without

their children living at

The in-depth inquiry was mainly focused on informants’ photo-related activities, including taking, managing, browsing, sharing, and display, and their motivations. The difference between their attitude toward conventional and digital photos and their opinions about photo devices or services recently in the market were also discussed. Figure 2 shows the entire procedures carry out for each informant family. During the in-field interviews, the processes and unexpected findings of the interviews are noticed momentarily and the interview

questions are added or subtracted according to the feature of the informant families.

(Before the interview) Asking informants for picking photos having specific meanings to them

Introduction of researchers, research objective and procedures

Discussion of photos picked by informants

Discussion of photo-taking activities and devices

Discussion of photo-managing activities

Discussion of photo-sharing activities

Discussion of photo-display activities

Discussion of informants' attitude toward conventional and digital photos

Introduction and discussion of latest photo devices

Discussion of other related issues and Acknowledgement

Figure 2 Procedures of Contextual Inquiry in this research

The purpose of this research is to understand the meaning of photos to family members. It is hard for some informants to express their opinions about the meaning of photos directly.

Through browsing and talking about informants’ photos, informants’ attitude toward photos is revealed. Therefore before the interview, the informants were requested to pick five photos having specific meanings to them. The photos must be taken by the informant or his family and viewed by more than two members in his family for revealing the photo-related

interaction between family members. The informants were requested to show and introduce the photos they picked. Some questions about these photos were asked, such as why these photos are special to them, under what circumstances they took these photos, with what device they took these photos, why they took photos with the specific device, and which aspect of their photo-taking devices they like and hate about and why.

Some questions about their photo managing, browsing, sharing, and display habits and their photo usage between conventional and digital photos as follows were also asked:

Where do you store your photos at home?

How do you manage your photos?

How do you name, label or annotate your photos?

Under what circumstances do you review your old photos?

Which photos do you share with others?

Whom do you share your photos with?

How and for what purpose do you share your photos?

How do your family members or friends share photos with you?

Which photos are displayed at the public area at home?

Where and why do you display these photos?

Do you carry photos with you?

Is there any difference between your conventional and digital photo usage?

Which aspects do you like and dislike about conventional and digital photography?

Do you have different attitude toward conventional and digital photos?

At the end of the interview, photo devices and services recently in the market were

introduced to the informants, including instant camera, sticker camera, wireless digital camera, 3G camera phone, portable digital photo printer, online photo album, digital photo frame, and digital photo necklace. (See Table 2) These products include conventional and digital devices and services used for photo taking, managing, sharing, and display in the domestic sphere. In order to increase the informants’ understanding to these products, pictures of these

photo-related devices are displayed at the same time. The opinions about these products and the way they might want to use them were also asked and taped.

Table 2 Photo devices introduced in Contextual Inquiry (for more details please refer to Appendix C)

Photo Device Brief Introduction

Instant Camera After taking a photo with an instant camera, the camera will print a tangible photo immediately, and then you can see and share the photo on the instant.

Sticker Camera The function of sticker camera is similar to an instant camera, except the printed photo is a cute sticker in a shape of bandage.

Wireless Digital Camera The wireless digital camera is connected to the internet. You can transfer your photos from the camera to your computer or directly to your online photo albums.

3G Camera Phone After taking photos with the 3G camera phone, you can transmit the photos to another 3G camera phone.

Portable Digital Photo Printer

With the portable digital photo printer, you can print photos by yourself. The portable digital photo printer has a grab handle for you to carry it everywhere. Besides, you can make your own photo sticker and magnet with this printer.

Online Photo Album You can share your digital photo with family and friends or the public on the online photo album, and annotate the photos in an easier way.

Digital Photo Frame You can load hundreds of your digital photos into the digital photo frame. The digital photos can be view as slideshow with the frame on your desk.

Digital Photo Necklace You can load your favorite photos to this tiny wearable display, and wear your necklace with a unique pendant.

3.4 Analysis

After each inquiry process, a debriefing session is proceeded as soon as possible. Questions about informant families’ taking, managing, and sharing activities, photo-related interactions between their family members, and differences between their attitude toward conventional and digital photos as follows are answered.

1. What is their 6W1H (who, what, when, where, why, how, whom) of photo taking?

2. What is their 5W1H (who, what, when, where, why, how) of photo management?

3. What is their 6W1H (who, what, when, where, why, how, whom) of photo sharing?

4. What is their motive of using specific device to take, manage or share their photo?

What are their needs for devices for taking, managing or sharing photo?

5. What troubles them in their photo usage?

6. What are the differences in their photo usage between conventional and digital photos?

7. Do they have different attitude toward conventional and digital photos?

8. Do different members in a family use photos in different ways?

9. What are similarity and differences in photo usage between different families?

10. Which photos are regarded as special and valuable ones?

Which elements do they care most about photos?

11. How do the members in a family interact through photo usage?

12. Is there any additional issue worth discussing in the following inquiries?

Photo usage profile of each informant family was built through answering these questions;

and key issues in each informant’s photo experience were captured at the same time.

The data collecting and analyzing approaches in this research are primarily qualitative. All the relevant information gathered through Contextual Inquiry is detailed, multifarious, and jumbled. This information needs to be carefully re-organized for following discussion.

Therefore after the in-field studies, the taped interview conversations were transferred into

Therefore after the in-field studies, the taped interview conversations were transferred into