Reliving Memories in Digital Photos as the Clock Ticks in the Present Moment

Team

Timeframe

2022 ↝ 2023

Keywords

  • Slow Technology
  • Research Through Design
  • Metadata
  • Field Study
  • Interaction Design
  • Digital Archives

Outcome

  • ↬

    Novel Temporal Interaction Design
  • ↬

    PhotoClock now available in the Apple App Store
  • ↬

    8 week field study with 12 participants
  • ↬

    ACM DIS 2023 Paper

The Core Idea

PhotoClock leverages the temporal metadata in digital photos to encourage reflection on memories, making photo archives more present, dynamic, and engaging. By incorporating various forms of clock-time, it creates new opportunities for reflective and memory-focused photo exploration.

PhotoClock uses the clock-time of the present moment to re-present photos you took around that same time of the day. As time ticks away relentlessly, PhotoClock highlights the ephemeral and ongoing quality of time.

Interaction Design

As digital photo archives expand rapidly with the rise of smartphones and cloud storage, they often become formless and intangible, lacking the material presence that encourages regular engagement. This makes it difficult for people to understand the scale of their archive and revisit the experiences it holds. PhotoClock addresses this by reconnecting users with their memories, presenting photos taken at the same ‘clock time’ as the current moment. The app retrieves a photo captured around the same time of day in the past and displays it alongside its temporal and location metadata, fostering reflection and connection to past experiences.

There are three main buttons for the user to interact with PhotoClock. The main button on the right toggles between the three pacing modes (Hour, Minute, and Second). The middle one with a pie chart icon on enables entry to the Sunburst page. The left one allows its user to toggle between the three selection filters (All, Date, and Weekday).

The main temporal modes are Hour, Minute, and Second. Each mode selects photos from a different unit of time and provides a different rhythm in transitioning photos. Hour mode displays one photo per hour drawn randomly from that stack. For example, when it turns 5pm, PhotoClock will randomly select one photo from all photos taken between 5:00-5:59pm. Minutes mode applies the same logic on the level of a minute (e.g., 5:01pm), and Second applies it on the granularity of a second (e.g., 5:01:01pm). The process is ongoing and continues indefinitely. If there are no photos available in a user’s archive for a particular time of the day, PhotoClock finds the next ‘closest’ in the near future and applies a layer of opacity, slowly becoming clearer until the precise time is right for it to be revealed.

Field Study

Study Goals

We aimed to ① investigate the reflective potential of clock-time as an alternative design approach for supporting memory-oriented photo interaction as well as ② explore conceptual propositions related to slowness and temporality.

Research Process

We deployed the PhotoClock application with 12 participants for an 8 week period. Each person had a unique PhotoClock application in their iOS device, often containing tens of thousands of personal photos.

Participant Stories

  • “Minute mode is my favorite. It is a good balance for me to go through memories between too fast Second and too slow Hour. Most of the photos I saw were taken in my home country, Iran. About 70% of them were from the past memories that I have forgotten or have not visited for a long time. It made me both sad and happy. How much can things change? How much can people change? And what you don’t realize is how fast things go by. It was a very emotional roller coaster for me to hold up.” ”
    ↳

    Ashley describes how Minute mode offered a valued pacing and prompt for reminiscence.

  • “"PhotoClock is more about not having control or little control, so you’re in a more passive position to think about emotions. Honestly, I really like this because they are memories. When you think about memories, a lot of the times we look at things or hear things that trigger them. I don’t recall the times where I actively searched for memory. It’s usually being recalled unconsciously. Each of these photos on PhotoClock brought me back to the state of mind and location I was in at the time. Overall, it’s very nostalgic and made me really appreciate my life. I feel grateful that I could go to these places, meet people, and document these photos.” ”
    ↳

    Natalie reflects on how PhotoClock prompted her to recall many meaningful memories.

  • “Using PhotoClock is very counter-intuitive. Especially nowadays, you want to see everything immediately, so wait- ing has become more challenging. I really liked that. It’s a rare experience in modern life. PhotoClock reminds me of my relationships with others. For example, a travel experience, or a beautiful time with someone would make me print the screen and share with my friends. _This kind of passive photo viewing way provides me another chance to anticipate which photo will jump out when I turn on my PhotoClock? It’s always a surprise._I will keep the app on my device if it keeps updated after the study.” ”
    ↳

    Lori valued the anticipation that came from the lack of control over PhotoClock.

  • “I traveled back to Taiwan two weeks ago because my grandma passed away. During that trip, I saw one photo of my grandma’s garden. I was missing her a lot. That photo has been in my album for more than five years. Yet, it’s until the day I saw it that I realized it was actually around sunset. PhotoClock reminds me of a daily thing that my grandma used to do. When she was alive, she would go up to the garden and water her plants. It’s usually 4 or 5pm. That’s also the time she worshiped God. So, it’s her routine — every day in the morning, and before sunset.” ”
    ↳

    Pamela shared a touching story of remembering her loved one’s past life patterns through a photo she had not visited for a long time.

Outcomes and Implications

Interacting with digital photos influences how people locate, retrieve, recollect, and share memories, but current technologies often complicate and restrict these practices. Our research advances this field by using clock time and timestamps as design elements to encourage fluid, exploratory engagement with digital photo archives. PhotoClock also demonstrates how offering minimal controls can help people interact with their life history embedded in personal data over time. On a higher level, PhotoClock offers a design research case that expands the concept of slow technology by developing new strategies for designing with temporality.

You can experience PhotoClock yourself on the Apple App Store.

↗ Download PhotoClock
Related Publications ↘

Acknowledgments

  • ↬

    This research is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

  • ↬

    We thank Jordan White, Ce Zhong, Nico Brand, Sam Barnett, Samann Pinder, and Kate Elliot for their assistance on this project.

Next Project

Check out Memory Compass →