24 Hour Inclusive Design Challenge at the European Business Conference 2010, Oslo, Norway, 20-21 May, 2010, organised by the Norwegian Design Council
Team Heavy Metal
Team leader: Jørgen Solstad, Kadabra
Design partner: David Hole
The issue
Images are a great way to document our lives, but people seldom take time to label their digital images and structure their file archives in meaningful ways.
The visual world is vitally important to visually impaired people. David has 3,000 images stored on his computer, 24 albums uploaded on Facebook and uses his camera to record events and communicate with others. The pictures serve as his diary, which he shows to family and friends and uses to express his identity and sharing on Facebook. Here, he browses his and 'friends' pictures, gives comments and tags those of interest.
David organises his own photos in folders by date and context although he has never seen them. When he shows them to others, their reactions and insights give an extra layer of information to his experience. The team wanted him to gain more value when looking at them and for everyone to do the same.
The design solution
Most image-capturing devices such as cameras and smart phones have inbuilt microphones. By allowing devices to capture sound clips in the brief period before the image is taken, a new type of media file can be created that pairs a still image with a sound clip.
The application Sound Cloud utilises this and allows you to explore a picture archive sorted according to similarities in their sound clip rather than by date or time. Sound Cloud analyses the sound clip and recognises its properties, allowing the possiblilty of moving through a landscape of images connected by similarities in sound.
The sound could be recorded five to ten seconds before the image is taken, capturing the moment that has just passed with the device constantly recording and deleting older sounds, or alternatively, the recording starting when the photo capture function is turned on.
The team believe that Sound Cloud can help photo enthusiasts like David rediscover their archives and recapture the important moments held there.
Download Heavy Metal presentation here (8.5MB PDF)
