Real Uses For Tagging
OK, now that my thesis has been submitted (YAY!), I have time to ponder some peripheral topics related to mobile communities. In particular, I'm thinking more about public authoring. This refers to anyone (or large groups) being able to collaboratively create things like wikis or other media. I'm also interested in how this would merge with geo-tagging (attaching digital content to places or GPS coordinates).
I've been traveling for the last two months through Japan, New Zealand and Italy, and I have a few examples of uses for tags. One of my gripes with a lot of ubicomp and locative research is the lack of focus on what users actually want to be able to do with it. So here's a few examples of what we DO want to do with it:
- I am in Japan and spend several hours trying to find a Ryokan (hostel). It turns out that it is out of business. I want to tag it and tell other travelers so they can avoid my misshap. They preferably need to be able to access it before they arrive at the location, or possibly while near it.
- I am with my father in New Zealand. We arrive at a hotel which looks fairly clean. My dad happens to be coming down with a nasty cold. The air conditioner/heater unit is so complex and unusable that we end up with the air conditioner on all night instead of the heat, making my father more ill. The hot water runs out after one shower leaving me with a luke-warm one. We are not happy and want to share our experiences and hopefully force the owners to solve the problems.
- Similarly we stayed in hotel several days later that was moderately priced and absolutely a beautiful room. The restaurant was also of high quality. We would like to advertise this place to other travellers on a similar budget.
- I am in a garden and shrine complex in Japan. It is a sprawling place with many paths. Instead of following the guided tour path signs I wandered up a small path to find a beautiful old wooden building surrounded by a field of pink flowers. I would like to tell other backpackers to try the path when they are near it.
- Lonely Planet advised going to a Japanese restaurant in a NZ town. It was 6pm on a Monday and it was closed. No idea why, but we'd wasted time getting there. I'd like to label it as having dubious opening hours. We also suffered through closures of national park information booths, mountain roads, tours and country restaurants - due to it being "off-season". The guidebook said nothing about the country being closed half the year.
- In Trento Italy, I try to use the local laundromat. The soap machine takes my money without giving me soap. I use the other soap machine. It only takes exact change and won't give change back. I don't have exact change and run next door. I put in money for the washer and press the start button - it doesn't start. It also won't give me my money back. I waste $7 with nothing to show for it, and I am pissed. I consider writing a note and taping it over the machine. But I don't have a good sheet of paper or tape and I don't know any Italian. I want to tag the specific machines, with a description of their individual problems that other potential customers can see. I'd also like to register a complaint with the owner without dialing the expensive international number listed on the wall.
Each of these examples has its own array of requirements - which are based on the social needs of the traveler, and the specific physical setting they are in. Building a geo-tagging system without building in a foundation of these requirements would be likely to produce an unusable system.
A few other unfinished thoughts:
- Replacing the "front desk attendant" at hotels (where is the... post office, laundromat, grocery store, etc.)
- Commenting on service quality
- Need for concept/rating summaraization tools if large numbers of users are using system
I've also been thinking a lot about graffiti. I think there's a lot to be learned from analysis of it, although I think it is only one form of offline public authoring. There must be a sociologist/anthropologist who's done a thesis on what graffiti means. I'll post another entry later this week with some graffiti examples.
I've been traveling for the last two months through Japan, New Zealand and Italy, and I have a few examples of uses for tags. One of my gripes with a lot of ubicomp and locative research is the lack of focus on what users actually want to be able to do with it. So here's a few examples of what we DO want to do with it:
- I am in Japan and spend several hours trying to find a Ryokan (hostel). It turns out that it is out of business. I want to tag it and tell other travelers so they can avoid my misshap. They preferably need to be able to access it before they arrive at the location, or possibly while near it.
- I am with my father in New Zealand. We arrive at a hotel which looks fairly clean. My dad happens to be coming down with a nasty cold. The air conditioner/heater unit is so complex and unusable that we end up with the air conditioner on all night instead of the heat, making my father more ill. The hot water runs out after one shower leaving me with a luke-warm one. We are not happy and want to share our experiences and hopefully force the owners to solve the problems.
- Similarly we stayed in hotel several days later that was moderately priced and absolutely a beautiful room. The restaurant was also of high quality. We would like to advertise this place to other travellers on a similar budget.
- I am in a garden and shrine complex in Japan. It is a sprawling place with many paths. Instead of following the guided tour path signs I wandered up a small path to find a beautiful old wooden building surrounded by a field of pink flowers. I would like to tell other backpackers to try the path when they are near it.
- Lonely Planet advised going to a Japanese restaurant in a NZ town. It was 6pm on a Monday and it was closed. No idea why, but we'd wasted time getting there. I'd like to label it as having dubious opening hours. We also suffered through closures of national park information booths, mountain roads, tours and country restaurants - due to it being "off-season". The guidebook said nothing about the country being closed half the year.
- In Trento Italy, I try to use the local laundromat. The soap machine takes my money without giving me soap. I use the other soap machine. It only takes exact change and won't give change back. I don't have exact change and run next door. I put in money for the washer and press the start button - it doesn't start. It also won't give me my money back. I waste $7 with nothing to show for it, and I am pissed. I consider writing a note and taping it over the machine. But I don't have a good sheet of paper or tape and I don't know any Italian. I want to tag the specific machines, with a description of their individual problems that other potential customers can see. I'd also like to register a complaint with the owner without dialing the expensive international number listed on the wall.
Each of these examples has its own array of requirements - which are based on the social needs of the traveler, and the specific physical setting they are in. Building a geo-tagging system without building in a foundation of these requirements would be likely to produce an unusable system.
A few other unfinished thoughts:
- Replacing the "front desk attendant" at hotels (where is the... post office, laundromat, grocery store, etc.)
- Commenting on service quality
- Need for concept/rating summaraization tools if large numbers of users are using system
I've also been thinking a lot about graffiti. I think there's a lot to be learned from analysis of it, although I think it is only one form of offline public authoring. There must be a sociologist/anthropologist who's done a thesis on what graffiti means. I'll post another entry later this week with some graffiti examples.
posted by axup at 12:35 AM
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