The core of the youGuide system web interface is photocartography - an arrangement geottaged photographs of places. There are 4 levels of views ranging from Metropolis to Place. The most expansive one is Metropolis - showing the full scope of the encompassed territory. Town view level displays a photocartographic map of a selected town and all system members’ part of the town. The Neighborhood view allows for an individualized POV of a particular member’s self-named neighborhood. A neighborhood is a psychological construct, which can only vaguely correspond to an actual geographically organized community. The most “zoomed in” state of the system is the Place view. It shows an enlarged version of the chosen place photo and its related system entries. All screens display related information based on the viewing context. A gallery of all Neighborhood Guides (NG) from the metropolis is always present.
The posting capabilities within the web portal begin with profile creation. Subsequently, a member can name his or her individualized neighborhood and begin building a corresponding photomap. One could post a place picture in various ways. The range of information connected to a single entry includes: place name, rating (like, don’t care, dislike), reason (for the rating), category, story, history (WIKI), annotations, graffiti and alternative place pictures.
In addition to viewing and posting a member can interact with the system and its members in various ways. By selecting different criteria (category, distance/proximity, etc.) the photomap could be redrawn to create alternative renderings of given geography. Since each individual place can be part of various members’ neighborhoods, one could enter one’s own picture or select any other one available in the system to be displayed within one’s personalized photomap. There is a variety of textual information related to a place that can be amended or updated. Creating inscriptions or renderings (Graffiti) over any picture is a unique feature of the system. In addition to leaving place annotations one could exchange messages with other members and ultimately organize a meet-up with a Neighborhood Guide.