Adventures in Space and Time: Browsing Personal Collections of Geo-Referenced Digital Photographs
Mor Naaman, Susumu Harada, Qianying Wang, Andreas Paepcke · 2004
We evaluate two novel applications for browsing personal collections of geo-referenced digital photographs. The first, PhotoCompas, is a browser that employs no graphical user interface elements other than the photos themselves (tex-tual browser). PhotoCompas was developed in our project, and is based on an automated organization of the respective photo collection into clustered locations and events. The second application, WWMX, features a richly visual inter-face, which includes a map and a timeline. WWMX is a third party implementation. We conducted a user study, where subjects performed tasks over their own geo-referenced photo collections. We found that even though the partici-pants enjoyed the visual richness of the map browser, they surprisingly performed as well with the textual browser as with the richer visual alternative. This result argues for a hybrid approach, but it also encourages textual user inter-face designs where maps are not a good choice. For example, maps are of limited feasibility on handheld devices, which are candidates for replacing the traditional photo wallet.