User-centred design of flexible hypermedia for a mobile guide: Reflections on the hyperaudio experience

A user-centred design approach involves end-users from the very beginning. Considering users at the early stages compels designers to think in terms of utility and usability and helps develop the system on what is actually needed. This paper discusses the case of HyperAudio, a context-sensitive adaptive and mobile guide to museums developed in the late 90s. User requirements were collected via a survey to understand visitors’ profiles and visit styles in Natural Science museums. The knowledge acquired supported the specification of system requirements, helping defining user model, data structure and adaptive behaviour of the system. User requirements guided the design decisions on what could be implemented by using simple adaptable triggers and what instead needed more sophisticated adaptive techniques, a fundamental choice when all the computation must be done on a PDA. Graphical and interactive environments for developing and testing complex adaptive systems are discussed as a further step towards an iterative design that considers the user interaction a central point. The paper discusses how such an environment allows designers and developers to experiment with different system’s behaviours and to widely test it under realistic conditions by simulation of the actual context evolving over time. The understanding gained in HyperAudio is then considered in the perspective of the developments that followed that first experience: our findings seem still valid despite the passed time

Layered evaluation of interactive adaptive systems : framework and formative methods

Peer reviewedPostprin

Providing Service-based Personalization in an Adaptive Hypermedia System

Adaptive hypermedia is one of the most popular approaches of personalized information access. When the field started to emerge, the expectation was that soon nearly all published hypermedia content could be adapted to the needs, preferences, and abilities of its users. However, after a decade and a half, the gap between the amount of total hypermedia content available and the amount of content available in a personalized way is still quite large.In this work we are proposing a novel way of speeding the development of new adaptive hypermedia systems. The gist of the approach is to extract the adaptation functionality out of the adaptive hypermedia system, encapsulate it into a standalone system, and offer adaptation as a service to the client applications. Such a standalone adaptation provider reduces the development of adaptation functionality to configuration and compliance and as a result creates new adaptive systems faster and helps serve larger user populations with adaptively accessible content.To empirically prove the viability of our approach, we developed PERSEUS - server of adaptation functionalities. First, we confirmed that the conceptual design of PERSEUS supports realization of a several of the widely used adaptive hypermedia techniques. Second, to demonstrate that the extracted adaptation does not create a significant computational bottleneck, we conducted a series of performance tests. The results show that PERSEUS is capable of providing a basis for implementing computationally challenging adaptation procedures and compares well with alternative, not-encapsulated adaptation solutions. As a result, even on modest hardware, large user populations can be served content adapted by PERSEUS

Sistema de enriquecimiento de consultas basado en los perfiles de usuario y de contexto tomando en cuenta el perfil de sesión y el histórico en el sistema

Ingeniero (a) de SistemasPregrad

Crowdsourcing Just in Time Knowledge at Workplace

The use of technology across a number of domains and facets is widespread. It is predicted by Forrester that almost half (42%) of the entire world’s population, by the end of 2015, will own a smart phone. Furthermore, during the last ten years, there has been much development in the communication arena as a direct result of smart mobile technologies, including within the work setting, thus facilitating a greater degree of communication and information-sharing capacity in work communities. Nonetheless, it remains that not all the features and tools offered by this technology are utilised, which predominantly is owing to the lack of insight and understanding of users. Accordingly, we argue that people sharing knowledge in the workplace are sharing all the knowledge they are aware of in the most effective way, because it is shared in the situation where they naturally experience problems -at the workplace. Owing to the universal nature inherent in this technology, it is considered pivotal that smart phone technology goes hand-in-hand with intrinsic support. Importantly, however, if not altogether lacking, this is very often inadequate. However, adopting mobile technology within the workplace setting can give rise to challenges that impact user behaviour and performance. Four studies were conducted with the aim of examining how employees address and manage problems on a smart mobile device (SMD) and accordingly aim at overcoming the issue. The first three studies considered provides valuable input for the researcher that was recognised as required in the fourth research. The third study was carried out amongst 90 participants located in two countries, using internet connectivity, as a case study. Confidence and frustration have previously been connected with technology competence, but this was not applied to a workplace scenario during problem-solving, when users are assigned an unfamiliar smart mobile device. This research focuses on identifying the link between workplace users’ levels of confidence and frustration when seeking to independently solve problems whilst completing familiar tasks on new smart mobile devices. A detailed video analysis of users’ attitudes and behaviour during problem- solving was conducted, highlighting a correlation between attitudes and behaviour towards completing a task. When reviewing and considering the findings from the first researches, the criteria for a universal crowdsourcing solution were identified. In the final of the studies, users across different levels of technology experiences and from varying job roles in different departments in a firm were brought together to form a collaborative community referred to as YourSpace designed and implemented for this thesis. To this end, the subjects were grouped across three progressive levels of a knowledge management framework devised for this specific study, namely Pedagogy (engagement), Andragogy (cultivation) and Heutagogy (realisation) levels. The employees of Malta International Airport were permitted to utilise YourSpace for a one- week period, during which time there was an assessment of its adoption within the work setting. Methodology validation in this thesis was carried out through the considered design of a tablet-based research instrument that encompassed a characteristic facilitating knowledge-capture. This was achieved through taking YourSpace and accordingly utilising its peer-to-peer support communities. An innovative method is introduced through improving modern-day global technology in a number of ways: firstly, by further expanding works carried out in the social media domain, specifically by capturing Just in Time knowledge when seeking to overcome obstacles in the work environment; secondly, by providing a crowdsourcing instrument with the capacity to capture Just in Time knowledge in an organic work setting through gaining insight into individuals’ characteristics and their within-community interactions throughout the process; and thirdly, by examining the behaviours and perspectives of users when seeking to overcome common issues experienced when utilising an unfamiliar device. The results highlighted provide a crowdsourced Just in Time support solution, which could prove pivotal in overcoming problems through the provision of a collaborative framework that supports the gathering of knowledge that is not dependent on technology experience

Migrating characters: effective user guidance in instrumented environments

The work at hand deals with the conceptual design as well as with the realization of virtual characters, which, unlike previous works in this research area, are not limited to a use in virtual worlds. The presented Migrating Character approach on the contrary allows virtual characters to act and interact with the physical world. Different technical solutions allowing a Migrating Character to move throughout physical space, either completely autonomously or in conjunction with a user, are introduced and discussed as well as resulting implications for the characters behavior. While traditional virtual characters are acting in a well defined virtual world, Migrating Characters need to adapt to changing environmental setups in a very flexible way. A Migrating Character must be capable of determining these environmental changes by means of sensors. Furthermore, based on this data, an adequate adaptation of the characters behavior has to be realized. Apart from a theoretical discussion of the necessary enhancements of a virtual character when taking the step from virtual to real worlds, different exemplary Migrating Character implementations are introduced in the course of the work.Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem konzeptuellen Entwurf und der technischen Realisierung von virtuellen Charakteren, die im Gegensatz zu bisherigen Arbeiten auf diesem Gebiet nicht auf den Einsatz in virtuellen Welten beschränkt sind. Der vorgestellte Migrating Character Ansatz erlaubt virtuellen Charakteren vielmehr in der physikalischen Welt zu agieren und zu interagieren. Verschiedene technische Lösungen, welche es einem Migrating Character ermöglichen sich in der physikalischen Welt autonom bzw. in Abhängigkeit vom Benutzer zu bewegen, sind ebenso Gegenstand der Arbeit wie eine ausführliche Diskussion der daraus für das Verhalten des virtuellen Charakters resultierenden Implikationen. Während sich traditionelle virtuelle Charaktere in einer wohl definierten virtuellen Umgebung bewegen, muss ein Migrating Character flexibel auf sich ändernde Umgebungsbedingungen reagieren. Aus sensorischer Sicht benötigt ein Migrating Character also die Fähigkeit eine sich ändernde physikalische Situation zu erkennen. Basierend auf diesen Daten muss weiterhin eine adäquate Anpassung des Verhaltens des Migrating Characters geschehen. Neben einer theoretischen Diskussion der notwendigen Erweiterungen eines virtuellen Charakters beim übergang von virtueller zu realer Umgebung werden auch exemplarische Migrating Character Implementierungen vorgestellt

Museum, memories and digital stories : A liminal space for human computer interaction.

Objects, material or digital, mediate memories: they act as anchors in between temporal notions and relations of past and present. Through those objects of memory, the act of remembering occurs neither completely relived in the mind, nor fully captured in the medium. Essential to personal memories, objects represent also our collective memory and capture our social history.The papers submitted for this PhD by selected publications look at the design of innovative technology that can make remembering more evocative and affective. They look at both museums, where digital and material are combined in an augmented reality, and personal/family contexts, where the home and mundane objects can be technologically enhanced to encapsulate digital memories.The museum was ideal to experiment with hybrid settings that combine material (the collection and the architectural space) and digital (the information) (papers 1 to 3). Personalization of information was used to augment the reality of rooms and exhibits: whole body interaction (i.e. physical movements in the space) was used to select and personalize the content and engage visitors with both material (the object) and digital (the information). Although the mobile technology is dated, these papers show the value of combining digital and physical to provide a holistic experience that made visitors wonder. Where the fusion occurs, however, is in the digital technology. To balance this perspective, paper 4 looks at the effect of taking the digital content out into the exhibition space. My recent research (papers 5-9) looks at objects of memory in the personal realm, in particular in the family home. Starting from observing the role and function of mementos, I conclude that a more holistic and organic approach has to be taken to make personal digital objects of memory more present in people's life. Materialization can be achieved with digital devices designed for individual and family use, so that the product fits with the mundane aspects of life, is immediate, and stimulates affect, not efficiency.Finally papers 10 and 11 provide evidence of the innovative methodologies I have developed and successfully used in iterative user studies and evaluations across different research projects and many years of research. As a whole this submission shows that there is a huge design space to explore in looking at how technology could be used in public or private spaces to bring together the two aspects of memory: remembering in the mind and capturing through objects, in order to preserve our digital life as tangible interactive objects