Designing Climbing Guides for Mobile Devices

Abstract

Due to the rapid technological development of mobile devices in recent years, cell phones now support a far broader range of usability than simply calling and sending text messages. Technologies that were previously unique to numerous individual handheld devices – such as cameras, video recorders, geographic location devices, touch screens, altimeters and Internet – are now converging and becoming commonplace to one single device. This is providing a foundation for new ways of combining media that has been enabled by these technologies.

Within the context of mobile computing, the possibilities of incorporating and combining different technologies together in a media product provides a vast range of new aesthetics, and new media genres are emerging due to the many ways we interact with media in the different contexts of our everyday life. This thesis examines how new media technology on mobile devices can be used in a beneficial way within a specific context.

Using standard climbing guides as a reference, I seek to provide a greater understanding on how technological features unique to the mobile media platform can support a meaningful user experience in a classic setting. The technological features discussed in this thesis are hypertext, multimodality and location-based services.