KidCam: Toward an Effective Technology for the Capture of Children's Moments of Interest

Mobile applications of automated capture present many interesting design challenges, balancing the desire for rich media against ease of use and availability. In particular, capturing rich media of young children has many potential benefits, but remains a difficult challenge due to the many unique constraints of recording children. Motivated by the aim of supporting a parent’s need to record the life events of a young child, we have designed KidCam, a prototype rich media capture device. This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of KidCam and its goal of addressing some of the challenges of recording young children. Results from a three-month study with four families show that KidCam addresses some of the challenges of recording rich media of children, but there are still remaining hurdles. We discuss these remaining challenges, potential ideas for how they could be addressed, and emergent uses for KidCam beyond the initial domain for the creation of family