Uncertainty about a product can act as a barrier to purchase. The more confident a customer is about a product, the more likely she is to purchase it. Online shopping websites provide an array of tools and information to support decision-making (e.g., product comparison, ratings, reviews, etc.). In contrast, few tools are available in physical stores to help customers navigate the decision process. We have developed a mobile application prototype to support the purchase decision process in the store. At the core of the experience is the use of social profile data as a form of context to provide a tailored experience aimed at reducing customer uncertainty.

We performed a content analysis of the information shared in a locally and culturally focused health application, EatWell. In EatWell, information is shared via the creation of audio recordings. Our results highlight the reflective nature of these recordings, in particular, 1) the topics discussed in these reflections as well as their tone, 2) how these reflections were contextualized (locally and culturally) and 3) how system users addressed one another in their reflections. We compare our findings with the dominant technological approach to supporting health information exchange amongst lay people: online support groups. In particular, we reflect upon why, though many of the community-building features of online support groups did not translate into EatWell, our users felt a sense of community empowerment. Based on our results, we discuss implications for designing locally and culturally focused health applications that leverage reflection as a contribution method.

Alternate reality games (ARGs) represent a unique form of group collaboration. The comparison of ARGs to more traditional groupware systems around themes of group formation and collective storytelling provides several questions for the study of groupwork and groupware systems.

Digital photographs capture moments in time. Often these moments represent a much larger experience. Storytelling is often used to elicit these experiences from images in an attempt to communicate them to others. In this work, we focus on supporting the creation of narratives using digital images to share personal experiences. In previous work [11], we learned story development, process management and collaboration were activities essential to navigating the process of digital narrative composition. In this work, we detail our design and evaluation of iTell - a digital narrative composition tool. We employ a design process based on providing supports intended to help novice storytellers engage in the composition process like experts. We discuss our experience with our design approach and explore implications of our design decisions.