Characteristics of pervasive learning environments in museum contexts

There is no appropriate learning model for pervasive learning environments (PLEs), and museums maintain authenticity at the cost of unmarked information. To address these problems, we present the LieksaMyst PLE developed for Pielinen Museum and we derive a set of characteristics that an effective PLE should meet and which form the basis of a new learning model currently under development. We discuss how the characteristics are addressed in LieksaMyst and present an evaluation of the game component of LieksaMyst. Results indicate that, while some usability issues remain to be resolved, the game was received well by the participants enabling them to immerse themselves in the story and to interact effectively with its virtual characters

Evaluating the user experience of acoustic data transmission A study of sharing data between mobile devices using sound

Users of smart devices frequently need to exchange data with people nearby to them. Yet despite the availability of various communication methods, data exchange between co-located devices is often complicated by technical and user experience barriers. A potential solution to these issues is the emerging technology of device-to-device acoustic data transmission. In this work, we investigate the medium-specific properties of sound as a data exchange mechanism, and question how these contribute to the user experience of sharing data. We present a user study comparing three wireless communication technologies (acoustic data transmission, QR codes and Bluetooth), when used for a common and familiar scenario: peer-to-peer sharing of contact information. Overall, the results show that acoustic data transmission provides a rapid means of transferring data (mean transaction time of 2.4 s), in contrast to Bluetooth (8.3 s) and QR (6.3 s), whilst requiring minimal physical effort and user coordination. All QR code transactions were successful on the first attempt; however, some acoustic (5.6%) and Bluetooth (16.7%) transactions required multiple attempts to successfully share a contact. Participants also provided feedback on their user experience via surveys and semi-structured interviews. Perceived transaction time, physical effort, and connectivity issues. Specifically, users expressed frustration with Bluetooth due to device selection issues, and with QR for the physical coordination required to scan codes. The findings indicate that acoustic data transmission has unique advantages in facilitating information sharing and interaction between co-located users

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

Exploring Bluetooth based Mobile Phone Interaction with the Hermes Photo Display

One of the most promising possibilities for supporting user interaction with public displays is the use of personal mobile phones. Furthermore, by utilising Bluetooth users should have the capability to interact with displays without incurring personal financial connectivity costs. However, despite the relative maturity of Bluetooth as a standard and its widespread adoption in today’s mobile phones, little exploration seems to have taken place in this area - despite its apparent significant potential. This paper describe the findings of an exploratory study nvolving our Hermes Photo Display which has been extended to enable users with a suitable phone to both send and receive pictures over Bluetooth. We present both the technical challenges of working with Bluetooth and, through our user study, we present initial insights into general user acceptability issues and the potential for such a display to facilitate notions of community

User-Centered Context-Aware Mobile Applications―The Next Generation of Personal Mobile Computing

Context-aware mobile applications are systems that can sense clues about the situational environment and enable appropriate mechanisms of interaction between end users and systems, making mobile devices more intelligent, adaptive, and personalized. In order to better understand such systems and the potentials and barriers of their development and practical use, this paper provides a state-of-the-art overview of this emerging field. Unlike previous literature reviews that mainly focus on technological aspects of such systems, we examine this field mainly from application and research methodology perspectives. We will present major types of current context-aware mobile applications, and discuss research methodologies used in existing studies and their limitations, and highlight potential future research

Using natural user interfaces to support synchronous distributed collaborative work

Synchronous Distributed Collaborative Work (SDCW) occurs when group members work together at the same time from different places together to achieve a common goal. Effective SDCW requires good communication, continuous coordination and shared information among group members. SDCW is possible because of groupware, a class of computer software systems that supports group work. Shared-workspace groupware systems are systems that provide a common workspace that aims to replicate aspects of a physical workspace that is shared among group members in a co-located environment. Shared-workspace groupware systems have failed to provide the same degree of coordination and awareness among distributed group members that exists in co-located groups owing to unintuitive interaction techniques that these systems have incorporated. Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) focus on reusing natural human abilities such as touch, speech, gestures and proximity awareness to allow intuitive human-computer interaction. These interaction techniques could provide solutions to the existing issues of groupware systems by breaking down the barrier between people and technology created by the interaction techniques currently utilised. The aim of this research was to investigate how NUI interaction techniques could be used to effectively support SDCW. An architecture for such a shared-workspace groupware system was proposed and a prototype, called GroupAware, was designed and developed based on this architecture. GroupAware allows multiple users from distributed locations to simultaneously view and annotate text documents, and create graphic designs in a shared workspace. Documents are represented as visual objects that can be manipulated through touch gestures. Group coordination and awareness is maintained through document updates via immediate workspace synchronization, user action tracking via user labels and user availability identification via basic proxemic interaction. Members can effectively communicate via audio and video conferencing. A user study was conducted to evaluate GroupAware and determine whether NUI interaction techniques effectively supported SDCW. Ten groups of three members each participated in the study. High levels of performance, user satisfaction and collaboration demonstrated that GroupAware was an effective groupware system that was easy to learn and use, and effectively supported group work in terms of communication, coordination and information sharing. Participants gave highly positive comments about the system that further supported the results. The successful implementation of GroupAware and the positive results obtained from the user evaluation provides evidence that NUI interaction techniques can effectively support SDCW

A proof-of-proximity framework for device pairing in ubiquitous computing environments

Ad hoc interactions between devices over wireless networks in ubiquitous computing environments present a security problem: the generation of shared secrets to initialize secure communication over a medium that is inherently vulnerable to various attacks. However, these ad hoc scenarios also offer the potential for physical security of spaces and the use of protocols in which users must visibly demonstrate their presence and/or involvement to generate an association. As a consequence, recently secure device pairing has had significant attention from a wide community of academic as well as industrial researchers and a plethora of schemes and protocols have been proposed, which use various forms of out-of-band exchange to form an association between two unassociated devices. These protocols and schemes have different strengths and weaknesses – often in hardware requirements, strength against various attacks or usability in particular scenarios. From ordinary user‟s point of view, the problem then becomes which to choose or which is the best possible scheme in a particular scenario. We advocate that in a world of modern heterogeneous devices and requirements, there is a need for mechanisms that allow automated selection of the best protocols without requiring the user to have an in-depth knowledge of the minutiae of the underlying technologies. Towards this, the main argument forming the basis of this dissertation is that the integration of a discovery mechanism and several pairing schemes into a single system is more efficient from a usability point of view as well as security point of view in terms of dynamic choice of pairing schemes. In pursuit of this, we have proposed a generic system for secure device pairing by demonstration of physical proximity. Our main contribution is the design and prototype implementation of Proof-of-Proximity framework along with a novel Co- Location protocol. Other contributions include a detailed analysis of existing device pairing schemes, a simple device discovery mechanism, a protocol selection mechanism that is used to find out the best possible scheme to demonstrate the physical proximity of the devices according to the scenario, and a usability study of eight pairing schemes and the proposed system