Development and Evaluation of Photo-sharing System Using an Anthropomorphic Photo Frame for Communication Support

Abstract

Many photo-sharing websites do not actively promote communication among their users. We believe that a website that promotes viewing and commenting on shared photographs should better support communication and relationships between people who do not know each other. Therefore, we have developed a photo-sharing system, named GAZO GAZO KUN. This system has an anthropomorphic photo function (a photo agent), which actively supports communication among users. Our experiments compare GAZO GAZO KUN to a current photo-sharing website in Japan, which is similar to Flickr. We found that the effect of promoting viewing and commenting on photographs in GAZO GAZO KUN was higher than that of the photo-sharing website.