Taking Your Digital Collection For a Walk: Crafting Location-based Experiences for the Public (Booth 7)

Demonstration
Laura Carletti, Horizon Digital Economy - University of Nottingham, UK, Ben Bedwell, University of Nottingham, UK

Locative media is not a new idea, but the capabilities of mobile phones, and a lack of understanding of how locative media can support compelling new experiences have limited its use. Crafting outdoor visiting experiences implies the familiarity with location-based technologies, and with the design of situated narratives.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham have contributed to the development of WanderAnywhere, a free locative blogging platform to explore the potential of locative media, and the feasibility of using locative media experiences for public engagement, education and commerce. WanderAnywhere is a tool for museum, galleries, archives, as well as for individuals, to create multimedia collections (e.g. text, images, videos and audio clips) bound to locations, and to have those collections delivered to the end-users through their mobile devices, depending on their location.
WanderAnywhere has been exploited to design diverse experiences, such as public engagement workshops; an interactive outdoor exhibition; an augmented art trail. The platform - as well as our understanding of the opportunities and limitations of locative media - have developed over the course of designing and orchestrating these experiences, resulting in a wealth of practical knowledge that we are keen to share with MW2015 attendees.
In this How-To session, we will offer an introduction to WanderAnywhere, as well as directions to maximise the use of digital assets available to design outdoor experiences.
Attendees can expect to gain an understanding of the potential of mobile devices and the web for enhancing outdoor culture and heritage offerings, and of the possibilities for reimagining their digital collections as location-based experiences. Attendees will also see how the digital “footprints” generated by visitors’ mobile devices can be useful metrics to evaluate and refine the design of location-based experiences.

Bibliography:
Carletti, L., & Davies, C. (2014). Transmedia Experience Design for Audience Engagement: An Experiment with Near Field Communication. Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts 2014.

Carletti, L., McAuley, D., Price, D., & Giannachi, G. (2013). Digital Humanities and Crowdsourcing: an Exploration. Selected papers from Museum and the Web 2013. 223-236.

Giannachi, G., Carletti, L., Sinker, R., Ward, R., Stack, J., Locatelli, C., Price, D., McAuley, D., Coughlan, T., & Benford, S. (2014). Art Mapping - Framing Public Engagement. Proceedings of NODEM 2014.

Roberts, S., & Carletti, L. (2012). Digital Engagement & the History of Advertising Trust Ghostsigns Archive. History Workshop Online.

Sinker, R., Giannachi, G., & Carletti, L. (2013). Art Maps - Mapping the Multiple Meanings of Place. International Journal of Art and Design Education. 32(3), 362-371.