Exploring the world with application
Type de matériel :
44
When we use a smartphone as we move about, we see our surroundings in a different way, adopting new practices to combine physical exploration of place with digital navigation on the Web. This paper seeks to identify how consulting digital information as we go along modifies our behaviour. Specifically, we will focus on the use of a mobile application dedicated to the presentation of a tourist attraction. Our study is based on a comparison of two groups of visitors: the first group were provided with a printed tourist guide, the second had the same guide plus a smartphone with a tourist guide application. For the purposes of comparison, the visitors were followed step by step (their movements were tracked by GPS) and click by click (the application recorded the user’s browsing history). At the end of the circuit participants were also invited to comment on their experience in semi-structured interviews. The results of the study suggest that the use of a smartphone while sightseeing modifies significantly our walking pace, the number of halts and slowdowns we make, and also the type of circuit we follow. Using the smartphone leads visitors to follow more carefully the itinerary proposed and, as a result, to explore the world with (greater) application.
Réseaux sociaux