About Window Expeditions
In these unprecedented times where we should stay at home, we can sometimes forget how relaxing and interesting our world can be. We want to remind people of all the wonders of the world by making people marvel at their surroundings through a window or from their balcony. What can you see, what do you hear, what do you smell from your window or balcony? We implemented a simple web app where users can take their time to describe their surroundings. Our goal with this app is to respark people’s enthusiasm about our world and hopefully help counter act feelings of imprisonment and isolation during quarantine. Users can upload one description per day and receive points (1). In addition, the app features a quiz where interested users are given a random description and have to guess where on earth the description was written. This allows users to admire other users’ contributions (2). Lastly, the data will be analysed in a research context to potentially shed light on how people perceive their surroundings.
(1) To comply with privacy regulations exact coordinates are not saved or transmitted. Data is stored on a server in Zürich-CH.
(2) The quiz only uses descriptions for which users explicitly agreed to publicly showing the descriptions in the quiz.
How does this App work?
With this application you can upload a landscape description once per day for which you will receive points. You can explicitly agree for your descriptions to be used in the quiz. Your contribution will also be checked by moderators before allowing them to be used in the quiz. You can always read all your own contributions so this application can also serve as a landscape diary of your surroundings. In a second part, this application offers a quiz functionality. You receive a random landscape description and you will have to guess from where the description originates. The closer you are, the more points you will get.
Acknowledgements
This application was implemented by Manuel Bär from the University of Zurich. A special thankyou to Alain Burkhalter for the image, to Ross and Jamie Purves, Maximilian Hartman and the rest of the Geocomputation Group for the regular testing, without you this application would not have been possible.
