Turadg Aleahmad - Noah Fishel - Amy Lew - Anna Östberg - Jan Zheng Continuum Activating the Allegheny Cemetery

What is Continuum? ✤ Continuum is a mobile application to enhance one’s exploration of Allegheny Cemetery. At the entrance to the cemetery is a serene display explaining to an interested visitor what Continuum does and how they can load it onto their phone.

Why Allegheny Cemetery? ✤ Historical ✤ Challenging ✤ Unexplored

Research ✤ Site Exploration ✤ Direct Observation ✤ On-site Interviews ✤ Background Research

On-site Research ✤ Come to the cemetery because it feels like a large public park ✤ Come to the cemetery for recreation ✤ Come to the cemetery for solitude ✤ Come to the cemetery to mourn

Background Research ✤ Dow et al. –Exploring spatial narratives and mixed reality experiences in Oakland Cemetery (2005) ✤ “Voices of Oakland” ✤ Audio augmentation to promote storytelling ✤ Jane McGonigal - Graveyard Games (2005) ✤ Situating games like Texas Hold ‘Em within cemetery ✤ Promoting exploration of cemetery by incorporating it into a game

Site Exploration ✤ Solitude ✤ Reflection ✤ Mourning ✤ Silence ✤ Peace ✤ History ✤ Contemplation

Design ✤ Ideation ✤ Design Space ✤ Needs Validation ✤ Encouraging Exploration

Ideation ✤ Let mourners leave physical or virtual tokens ✤ Annotation of sites ✤ Augmented reality of history ✤ Giving or providing directions ✤ Passage through time

Design Space ✤ Success conditions ✤ Amount of guidance ✤ Type of learning ✤ Number of participants ✤ Competition or collaboration ✤ Additive to experience ✤ Byproducts

Needs Validation ✤ connect with lives of deceased ✤ game-like exploration ✤ creative expression ✤ learn about history ✤ discover history

Needs Validation ✤ connect with lives of deceased ✤ game-like exploration ✤ creative expression ✤ learn about history ✤ discover history

Encouraging Exploration ✤ Navigation of cemetery – maps, directions ✤ Passage through time - travel from grave to grave and see different years, historical eras ✤ Connections between people - showing relationships

Why a Mobile Application? ✤ inappropriate to place much signage or technology in a cemetery ✤ individual devices allow for solitude and contemplation ✤ greater flexibility than providing a specialized device

Features ✤ Signage leading to the application itself ✤ Map of the cemetery ✤ Augmented reality capabilities (camera) ✤ Timeline ✤ Search

Signage ✤ Located at the cemetery entrances ✤ Similar to signs in large public spaces in need of navigation, such as national parks ✤ Directs visitors to download the application

Map ✤ Assists in navigating the cemetery ✤ Important graves can be marked on the map for later ✤ Integrates with other features, like timeline

Augmented Reality ✤ Provides information based on location as seen through the camera ✤ Clicking on the name provides more information about the person

Timeline ✤ Enables visitors to select particular periods of time that interest them

Search ✤ Can search for people, places, important events ✤ Search gives flexibility to those who know what they wish to find

Video And now, our feature presentation...