User Analysis
LocaShare primarily focuses on giving users the ability to (i) select the type and amount of location information that they would like to share with others (for social or commercial purposes) and (ii) visualize the amount of information they have shared. The sharing of location data is important to anyone with a GPS in their phone. This is a broad population. We performed contextual inquiry to learn more about how people use existing systems, and what features they might like to see in a location-sharing app. In particular, we inquired about social and commercial uses of location-data sharing. We interviewed people who represented
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of location data sharing services.
Example users in these categories are:
1. Joe, an unmarried college student who wants to update his friends about his visits to new or interesting places and is interested in receiving as many relevant offers as possible,
2. Bob, a married employee who cares a lot about the amount and type of information he shares with others, and wants to primarily connect with friends and family, and,
3. Carol, a middle-aged parent who primarily wants to keep track of her family members.
Less-savvy/non users:
This user is a middle-aged iPhone owner who does not currently use voluntary location sharing. She believes her location data is being used by a variety of applications, but isn’t sure which ones or what it’s used for.
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