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In 2008, the EU project “Digital Djurpark” (Digital Zoo) started as a cooperation between the digital media lab at the department of Applied Physics and Electronics (TFE) at Umeå University and Lycksele Zoo. The technology behind the Digital Zoo project is a wireless sensor network that is placed in the park. This wireless sensor network collects information from the park and is able to save data for the future but also send live data outside the park. The idea behind the project Digital Zoo was to give zoo-visitors new experiences during their visit and let them be able to interact with the zoo and to give the visitor a chance to get to know the animals in a more personal way.

The objective of this thesis is to create new experiences by using media techniques and the application environment is Digital Zoo. The work can be seen as applied research because of the focus on an actual case, Digital Zoo. The major scientific challenge with this work is to use media techniques so the experience for the visitor feels like a new experience. The overall research question is: How is it possible to give the zoo visitors new experience by using media techniques? This overall question is broken down into three sub-questions: (1) How is it possible to let the visitors feel involved in the experience by using media techniques?; (2) How is it possible to adapt the experience to the visitor by using media techniques?; (3) How is it possible to integrate the experience in both the digital and the physical world by using media techniques?

To create new experience for a zoo visitor it is necessary to understand the visitor better, therefore this work become interdisciplinary, touching on aspects and approaches such as interaction, media technology, social science, and marketing. To investigate different ways to enhance the visitors experience regarding the Digital Zoo interaction, the following research methods were used: case study, surveys, interviews, prototyping, and user tests. Participants in these studies were representatives from Swedish zoos, visitor in Lycksele Zoo, and children from school classes in Umeå.

It is of importance to recognize that this work will not give a general result on how to create experiences for users. However, since this work has been based on a real case, Digital Zoo, it is most certainly possible to find results that can be applied in similar cases, e.g. in the tourist attraction section. The results are practical examples on how to create experiences using media technology within a tourist attraction. The studies resulted in applications with social media, user generated content, and Proxemic dimensions in focus. These practical examples might form a basis for influencing a future concept for tourist attractions to use.

Finally a social media game concept is proposed, the concept is combining ubiquitous information, social media and a game application. This social media game concept shows how it would be possible to integrate the experience in both the digital and the physical world involving more than one person. The participants in the game are visitors both inside and outside the zoo. The media game concept creates a new enhancing experience by using media techniques such as a wireless sensor network, social media, and applications used both on smartphones and computers.

The contribution of this work is the idea of using a game concept to create new experiences in a tourist attraction. This work shows how a game concept could combine the physical and digital worlds. The concept suggest that to create experiences for different visitors, the information should adapt to the visitors as well as letting visitors become part of the experience with, e.g., user generated content. This concept would make it possible for zoos and visitors to expand the user experience-timespan to include the time before, during, and after the visit. 

This case study describes how to convert a gate system from using magnetic keycards to face recognition. The gate is placed at one of Europe's biggest indoor training facilities, IKSU. The goal with this case study was to make the system efficient, easy to use and friendly.

In this paper a conceptual model for a social media game will be illustrated. The idea is to find a way to integrate our physical and digital world in a way that will involve the environment around us containing both artifacts and people and become a natural part of our daily lives. We want to show that by integrate ubiquitous information and social media in a game idea, it is possible to create a concept for a social media game application that could be used at a tourist attraction, e.g. a zoo. The value that is received from this application is both educative for the visitors and marketing for the tourist attraction. The conceptual model of the social media game builds upon the foundations of internet of things for the future version of a tourist attraction, such as the Digital Zoo.

In this chapter we will describe our work to set up a large scale wireless visual sensor network in a Swedish zoo. It is located close to the Arctic Circle making the environment very hard for this type of deployment. The goal is to make the zoo digitally enhanced, leading to a more attractive and interactive zoo. To reach this goal the sensed data will be processed and semantic information will be used to support interaction design, which is a key component to provide a new type of experience for the visitors. In this chapter we will describe our research work related to the various aspects of a digital zoo

This paper proposes an intuitive wireless sensor/actuator based communication network for human animal interaction for a digital zoo. In order to enhance effective observation and control over wild life, we have built a wireless sensor network. 25 video transmitting nodes are installed for animal behavior observation and experimental vibrotactile collars have been designed for effective control in an animal park.

The goal of our research is two-folded. Firstly, to provide an interaction between digital users and animals, and monitor the animal behavior for safety purposes. Secondly, we investigate how animals can be controlled or trained based on vibrotactile stimuli instead of electric stimuli.

We have designed a multimedia sensor network for human animal machine interaction. We have evaluated the effect of human animal machine state communication model in field experiments.