Photo album on mobile devices. New horizons on snapshot photography

Abstract

Smartphones have become the leading domestic computer, reaching a percentage of the population unlike any seen before with a technological product. This ubiquity of the smartphone has also put a camera in the pockets of nearly half of the world’s population, completely changing the concept of domestic photography. This thesis researches how this evolution has affected the snapshot habits of smartphone users and how it has changed the previous Kodak culture. Following the hypothesis that there is a progressive decrease in the use of traditional printed album, the objective of finding whether current photo management systems can fulfil the role that traditional album has in memory, communication and identity has been stated. A cross-study with data from user's habits, systems features and expert opinion, analysing the evolution of the situation for two years is proposed. As a result, this study finds that current systems are improving the long-term retrieval but fail concerning the implementation of standards that allow users to export the contextual information generated inside the system.