Creating shareable memories with custom digital photo frames
The Columbus Metropolitan Library and the CML Foundation hosted their second annual Book Festival, a literary event that attracted over 40,000 guests this year. Attendees had the chance to meet authors, shop new and used books, buy book-themed gifts, and participate in programs for all ages.
As the technology partner for this event, we proposed a new way to increase awareness and promote engagement: a virtual photo booth. There are always unique challenges when dealing with events, because we have to anticipate not only how users will interface with the technology, but how they will be moving throughout their physical, offline event space as well.
Our design team created three fun frames, focusing on the library and Book Festival. These frames were designed with selfies and social media in mind, leaving plenty of space in the center of the screen to show guests and event details while clearly showing where they were taken and enhancing the branding of the event.
The Photo Booth works like this: users go to a URL, either by tapping their phone to an NFC card or using a QR code. They choose the custom frame they want to use. Then, they take a photo and share it. From there, the Administrative team can look at photos for screening. For this step, we used a program called Pusher, which gets real-time updates from the server so the Admin team knew when new pictures were taken. This way, administrators didn’t have to keep checking to see if any new pictures were available for approval. Once the administrators approved pictures, they went to the public-facing screens for the guests at the festival to see!
The photo booth was a different type of project than we typically do, so there were some challenges we had never encountered before. Getting the user interface, the administrative backend, and the public display to interface together was a crucial part of the programming process. Another challenge was making sure the design elements scaled appropriately on every device. The end result ensured that the frame looked good on Apple and Android, Chrome and Safari, and screens of all sizes.
In all, about 230 photos were taken using the Photo Booth, with over 150 displayed on screens over the course of the weekend. The displayed photos showed festival guests what kind of vendors and attractions they could expect to see throughout the venue. Having a visual display in multiple locations caught the attention of users and encouraged more engagement. The Photo Booth also produced quality photos worthy of social media, with clear branding commemorating the event.
This was our first event with a digital photo booth, but it will not be our last! With the feedback from library staff, the CML Foundation, and Book Fest participants, we are actively working to create an even more user-friendly experience for this product. We are planning to use our updated framed.camera product at more events in the near future!
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