Mobility is the Message: Experiments with Mobile Media Sharing

This thesis explores new mobile media sharing applications by building, deploying, and studying their use. While we share media in many different ways both on the web and on mobile phones, there are few ways of sharing media with people physically near us. Studied were three designed and built systems: Push!Music, Columbus, and Portrait Catalog, as well as a fourth commercially available system – Foursquare. This thesis offers four contributions: First, it explores the design space of co-present media sharing of four test systems. Second, through user studies of these systems it reports on how these come to be used. Third, it explores new ways of conducting trials as the technical mobile landscape has changed. Last, we look at how the technical solutions demonstrate different lines of thinking from how similar solutions might look today. Through a Human-Computer Interaction methodology of design, build, and study, we look at systems through the eyes of embodied interaction and examine how the systems come to be in use. Using Goffman’s understanding of social order, we see how these mobile media sharing systems allow people to actively present themselves through these media. In turn, using McLuhan’s way of understanding media, we reflect on how these new systems enable a new type of medium distinct from the web centric media, and how this relates directly to mobility. While media sharing is something that takes place everywhere in western society, it is still tied to the way media is shared through computers. Although often mobile, they do not consider the mobile settings. The systems in this thesis treat mobility as an opportunity for design. It is still left to see how this mobile media sharing will come to present itself in people’s everyday life, and when it does, how we will come to understand it and how it will transform society as a medium distinct from those before. This thesis gives a glimpse at what this future will look like

Mobile Campus Tour Guide for UTP

In line with the advancement of current technology, popularity of mobile tour guide application for universities is growing rapidly among the universities outside of Malaysia. Local universities are currently trying to adapt to this new phenomena. Current method used in exploring places in campus is time consuming and not effective. Common workaround is to look for the signboards or ask around but there are cases where the direction given was wrong and confusing. The objective of this project is to develop an android mobile tour guide application, ‘UTP Campus Tour Guide’, for Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS that provide users with interactive map to help them in exploring UTP. A review of existing mobile tour guide applications reveals diverse design methods were used for developing these applications. The results of careful analysis of these applications informed the design of the proposed application. The application is developed using MIT App Inventor 2 as the platform. A customized map of UTP and specific routes from one location to another location was developed using Google Maps Engine and then tested continuously to ensure its functionality working flawlessly. Users are able to find their preferred destination easily and can have a self-guided tour on their own with the help of this mobile tour guide application. Potential target users for this system will be mainly new students, new staffs and visitors of UTP who are not familiar with places in UTP. This mobile application will act as a map navigator for them to find places in UTP easily

ENHANCING USERS’ EXPERIENCE WITH SMART MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

The aim of this thesis is to investigate mobile guides for use with smartphones. Mobile guides have been successfully used to provide information, personalisation and navigation for the user. The researcher also wanted to ascertain how and in what ways mobile guides can enhance users' experience. This research involved designing and developing web based applications to run on smartphones. Four studies were conducted, two of which involved testing of the particular application. The applications tested were a museum mobile guide application and a university mobile guide mapping application. Initial testing examined the prototype work for the ‘Chronology of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah’ application. The results were used to assess the potential of using similar mobile guides in Brunei Darussalam’s museums. The second study involved testing of the ‘Kent LiveMap’ application for use at the University of Kent. Students at the university tested this mapping application, which uses crowdsourcing of information to provide live data. The results were promising and indicate that users' experience was enhanced when using the application. Overall results from testing and using the two applications that were developed as part of this thesis show that mobile guides have the potential to be implemented in Brunei Darussalam’s museums and on campus at the University of Kent. However, modifications to both applications are required to fulfil their potential and take them beyond the prototype stage in order to be fully functioning and commercially viable

EazyTrack: Exploring Next-Gen Technology and User Experience Design to Help Relieve Stress

In this competitive society with the pace of people’s life speeding up, stress is inevitable. Too much stress though will bring negative effects on people’s physical and emotional wellbeing. According to a survey the American Psychological Association conducted from 2007 to 2016, very few actions are being taken to prevent or relieve stress effectively even though an increasing number of people have realized that stress has an impact on health and wellbeing.¹ Untreated chronic stress can contribute to severe health problems including anxiety, insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system.² Today, there are many stress trackers or guides on the market to help people solve this problem. However, most of these products lack effective solutions for a user’s individual situation and need design improvements from both a user experience and a visual design perspective to help solve people’s daily problems. This leaves a great opportunity open to help people with mental stress issues through wearable technology. The mission of this thesis project is using data visualization and user interface design to first, help people determine their stress level and second, to provide customized scientific methods for relieving that stress. The final project is an interactive prototype of a mobile application that works with a wearable device which tracks data related to the user’s stress. Overall, the project aims to create a tool with a friendly user experience and attractive visual elements for people with stress issues. It will help them to understand their stress and to manage it in an easier, intuitive and accessible way

Mobile Applications for Cultural Tourism – Past, Present, and Future. Criteria for a Successful Mobile App

This publication presents a prototype of a mobile application for cultural tourism. Its main goal is to provide information about tourist sites in a city with a rich historical past and deeprooted traditions, catering to the needs and preferences of contemporary users in terms of functionality and user-friendliness. The paper analyzes contemporary Bulgarian and foreign mobile applications for cultural tourism, emphasizing their advantages over similar applications that were active in the recent past. These advantages include availability, interactivity, and an enhanced user experience. The purpose of the paper is to develop and promote a mobile application that will meet the needs of tourists. The methodology for designing the prototype includes a review and comparative analysis of mobile applications that existed a decade ago, as well as current applications in this field in 2023. Both local applications for Bulgaria and international applications for the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Hungary, and Spain were studied. The study focused on usability and other key characteristics that are similar to the functionality of the developed application. Weaknesses of some of the analyzed applications and problems avoided in the proposed prototype are indicated. The paper also presents the primary features of the developed application, such as its user-friendliness, speed of operation, intuitive design, and easy access to tourist and cultural sites. In the future, with the introduction of various mobile applications in this field, it is expected that users will be greatly facilitated in their search for up-to-date information on cultural and historical sites around the world

Horizon Report 2009

El informe anual Horizon investiga, identifica y clasifica las tecnologías emergentes que los expertos que lo elaboran prevén tendrán un impacto en la enseñanza aprendizaje, la investigación y la producción creativa en el contexto educativo de la enseñanza superior. También estudia las tendencias clave que permiten prever el uso que se hará de las mismas y los retos que ellos suponen para las aulas. Cada edición identifica seis tecnologías o prácticas. Dos cuyo uso se prevé emergerá en un futuro inmediato (un año o menos) dos que emergerán a medio plazo (en dos o tres años) y dos previstas a más largo plazo (5 años)