Understanding geocaching practices and motivations

2008. Kenton O'Hara
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Abstract

Geocaching is a location-based activity that has been practiced for a number of years. As a sustained and established activity it represents an important opportunity for understanding everyday practices and motivations that can build up around a location-based activity. We present findings from a field study of everyday geocaching behaviour. In contrast to previous work, we take a broad perspective on the activity focussing beyond the in situ consumption of these experiences. We look too at the practices and motivations surrounding participants' creation of these experiences. Further we examine these behaviours within the social context of the on-line community that provides a significant basis for many of these behaviours. We use the findings to discuss broader implications for the design of future location-based experiences

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Citation

O'Hara, K. (2008). Understanding geocaching practices and motivations. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1177–1186). New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357239, doi:10.1145/1357054.1357239

BibTeX

@inproceedings{10.1145/1357054.1357239,
author = {O'Hara, Kenton},
title = {Understanding geocaching practices and motivations},
year = {2008},
isbn = {9781605580111},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357239},
doi = {10.1145/1357054.1357239},
abstract = {Geocaching is a location-based activity that has been practiced for a number of years. As a sustained and established activity it represents an important opportunity for understanding everyday practices and motivations that can build up around a location-based activity. We present findings from a field study of everyday geocaching behaviour. In contrast to previous work, we take a broad perspective on the activity focussing beyond the in situ consumption of these experiences. We look too at the practices and motivations surrounding participants' creation of these experiences. Further we examine these behaviours within the social context of the on-line community that provides a significant basis for many of these behaviours. We use the findings to discuss broader implications for the design of future location-based experiences},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
pages = {1177–1186},
numpages = {10},
keywords = {diary study, geocache, global positioning system, gps, interviews, location-based computing},
location = {Florence, Italy},
series = {CHI '08}
}