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plication and implemented a functional prototype
of the system, called Image Exchange.
The captured images would be transparently
transferred without requiring any user interac-
tion to fulfill the second requirement of backing
up users' images. As a result, a user would have
a feeling of having his image collection always
present on the device and in the service. The
application would not only be an offline gallery
or a tool for uploading images to a online photo
sharing service, but a fully integrated photo shar-
ing application that is always in sync with the
corresponding service.
To satisfy the third requirement of browsing
images, the photo sharing application would have
two modes: one for browsing local (user's own im-
ages) and another for online (published by others)
photos. When the user would start the application,
a main menu would immediately indicate the two
modes for local and online browsing. We wanted
to minimize the amount of steps that would be
required to show the latest image in both modes
full-screen: The first selectable item in the main
menu would be “Latest” in both modes. As the
first item in the menu would be selected when the
application was started, the user would be one click
away from his latest image and two clicks away
from the latest public image. After clicking on a
menu item, the user would be taken to an image
browsing view, where he could browse his/public
images with the left and right arrow keys.
Finally, an image menu was defined to meet
the fourth, fifth and sixth requirements of letting
users to publish and add/view titles, descriptions
and comments of photos. The menu would be
accessible when browsing the images and would
show the options that were relevant for a particular
image. The title, description and comments of an
image would be in sync with the corresponding
Internet service: Whenever the user decides to
change a title or description or add a comment
either on the mobile device or in the service, the
changes would also appear in the other end. This
would in turn improve the user's perception that the
application was fully integrated to the service and
the content appeared to be common in both ends.
Requirements
The requirements for a mobile photo sharing
application were derived from our user studies
and evaluations of current mobile photo sharing
applications (Vartiainen et. al., 2008). They were
also in line with previous research (Naaman et.
al., 2008):
1. An easy way to register to a photo sharing
Internet service
2. An automatic uploading and backing up
images to the Internet service
3. An easy way to browse images from the us-
er's own collection or other users' collection
4. An easy way to publish images
5. An easy way to add and modify titles and
descriptions of images
6. An easy way to add and view comments
To meet the first requirement of simplify-
ing and facilitating the registration process, we
investigated ways to minimize the registration
effort. After several brainstorming sessions, the
identification number of the device was decided
to be used as an initial user name. Thus, a user
account (including the user name and password)
would be created to the service without any user
input except from asking the permission to use
network connection. Afterwards, the user would
be notified of the successful registration. Typing
text with a mobile device can be a laborious task,
especially when some users may not use any dic-
tionary, or if the task requires text entry without
any typographical errors. That is why by removing
the need for any input, we would lower the entry
barrier for the user to start using the application.
The user could easily change their user name into
something more descriptive by using the Internet
service from a PC later on.
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