Experiences2Go: Sharing Kids’ Activities Outside the Home with Remote Family Members (Best Paper Nomination)

Video communication is moving beyond face-to-face discussions on desktop computers to sharing experiences out in the real world. We explored how mobile video could enable distributed family members to share experiences wherever they occurred – kids’ sporting events, birthday parties, etc. We investigated how people used two technology probes to share activities outside the home: an iPad running Skype and our Experiences2Go prototype composed of a networked slate and a camcorder on a tripod. We observed their use in the field with nine families and explored the impact that their mobility, optical zoom, and multiple view features had on sharing the experience. We identified four sets of stakeholders in sharing experiences, the variety of sharing scenarios enabled, and reactions to the features that each probe offered, leading to design considerations for future mobile shared experience systems.