Snapfish Lab: An open online imaging community

With the increasing amount of digital media being stored, shared and consumed on the Internet, more imaging applications are deployed online. However, the usability and use model of those applications are often less studied. In this paper, we present Snapfish Lab, an open online imaging community web site, to enable both imaging technologists and enthusiasts participate actively in exploring the usability and use model of the exploratory imaging applications. The main topic addressed in this paper is the challenges and solutions of building a production quality web site that supports open and high performance imaging application hosting, rich user feedback collection and satisfactory end user experience. The key value offered by Snapfish Lab is to bridge imaging research community and end users so that user’s demand becomes part of innovation cycle to drive web based imaging research and development.