7,493 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Mobilizing The Open University: case studies in strategic mobile development
This paper presents an overview of many activities undertaken in the Mobile Learner Support project area in The Open University (OU). Please note that while many of the project strands involve strategic development that is embedded in the OU’s institution-wide teaching and learning systems, some of the data and findings we hope will be of use to others undertaking work in related areas. In addition to the core work in implementing a Mobile VLE and associated resources, an overview of related mobile audio eAssessment and eBook format development project strands are given, leading to development of a blend of web application software and native or client applications.
The OU delivers significant proportions of online content and collaboration as part of its supported open learning distance education model to over 200,000 part-time students at any given time. In particular, over the past 4 years, adapting open source technologies for around 600 course websites has delivered the requirement to support course activities for up to 4,700 students per course cohort with a corresponding 250 variations of a single course to provide online tutorial spaces. The OU has also throughout its history adapted to increasingly flexible and personalised modes of delivering and interacting with multimedia and audiovisual content as part of a blended approach, most recently aiming to disaggregate content and allow remixing through its open educational resources initiative.
For updates on the Mobile Learner Support project, please visit http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/mLear
Haptic Transit: Tactile feedback to notify public transport users
To attract people to use public transport,
efficient transit information systems
providing accurate, real-time, easy-tounderstand
information must be provided to
users. In this paper we introduce
HapticTransit, a tactile feedback based
alert/notification model of a system, which
provides spatial information to the public
transport user. The model uses real-time bus
location with other spatial information to
provide feedback about the user as their
journey is in progress. The system allows
users make better use of „in-bus‟ time. It
allows the user be involved with other
activities and not be anxious about the
arrival at their destination bus stop. Our
survey shows a majority of users have
missed a bus stop/station whilst undertaking
a transit journey in an unfamiliar location.
The information provided by our system can
be of great advantage to certain user groups.
The vibration alarm is used to provide tactile
feedback. Visual feedback, in the form of
colour coded buttons and textual description,
is also provided. This model forms the basis
for further research for developing
information systems for public transport
users with special needs – deaf, visually
impaired and those with poor spatial
abilities
Mobile Auditory Guidance for Public Transportation
Helsingin seudulla on vapaasti saatavilla kattavaa tietoa julkisesta liikenteestä. Tietoa välitetään käyttäjille monien eri sovellusten avulla. Yleensä nämä sovellukset toimittavat tiedon pelkästään visuaalisessa muodossa, jättäen äänen potentiaalin (lisä)tiedon välityksessä täysin vaille huomiota. Graafinen ratkaisu voi olla epäkäytännöllinen ja tiedon saanti vaatia paljon keskittymistä, kun kyseessä on mobiililaite ja informaatio tarvitaan liikenteessä.
Tässä työssä suunniteltiin ja kehitettiin täysin toiminnallinen mobiilisovellus reittisuunnittelua ja -opastusta varten. Sovelluksen tavoitteena on minimoida visuaalinen huomiointi ja tarkkailu, toimittaen äänen avulla tietoa perustuen aikatauluihin, kellonaikaan sekä käyttäjän sijaintiin. Päämääränä on tarjota informaatio merkityksellisessä ja helposti ymmärrettävässä muodossa, hyödyntäen muuta ääntä kuin puhetta, vapauttaen käyttäjän silmät ja kädet sekä poistaen tarpeen seurata kellonaikaa.
Käytettyjen merkkiäänten tunnistettavuutta ja arvioita niiden ärsyttävyydestä testattiin epämuodollisesti pienellä määrällä koehenkilöitä. Sovelluksen tarkoitus ja äänten metaforat selitettiin lyhyesti, jonka jälkeen suurin osa käytetyistä auditiivisista symboleista tunnistettiin hyvin. Ylipäänsä mitään ääniä hyödyntävän sovelluksen käyttö julkisissa paikoissa ilman kuulokkeita herätti joissakin testihenkilöissä epäilyksiä. Kaiken kaikkiaan sovelluksessa todettiin olevan selviä mahdollisuuksia hyödylliseksi apuvälineeksi ja useimmat koekuuntelijoista havaitsivat ominaisuuksia, joiden he kokivat olevan itselleen käytännöllisiä.Comprehensive information for using public transportation in the Helsinki region is freely available and there are different applications that provide this. These applications, however, typically only provide information in the visual modality, completely neglecting the potential of using audio for conveying (additional) messages. In the context of mobile devices and requiring information while on the move, this can be cumbersome and requires the user to pay a lot of attention to the application in order to get the information.
A completely functional mobile application for journey planning and guidance for travelling along a found route was designed and developed in this thesis. The aim for the application is to reduce the attention requirements to a minimum by using sound to deliver useful information to the user based on schedules, time, and the user's location. The objective is to provide the information by meaningful and easily understandable non-speech auditory cues to free the user's eyes and hands while, at the same time, removing the need to pay attention to the time.
The recognizability of the used sounds, and estimation of whether they would be useful or annoying, was tested informally by a small number of people. After a brief explanation of the purpose and metaphors of the sounds in the application, most auditory icons were recognized well. Using an application with any sort of sound in public without headphones raised doubts in some. Overall the application was found to have potential for being a helpful aid and most of the test subjects saw elements that would be useful for themselves
The provision of service information for public transport
submittedVersio
Mobile Tour Assistant for Malaysia
Malaysia's tourism industry has seen a rapid growth rate for the past years, and played a
significant role in the development of the country's economy. 2007 is a special year for
Malaysian tourism since it is called the "Visit Malaysia" year in celebration of 50 years of
Independence. Information Technology has made remarkable contributions to the growth of
tourism industry in Malaysia. Its efforts to promote tourism range from websites providing
information to systems to service tourists. However, while countries with well-developed
tourism industry like France and Hong Kong have developed comprehensive tour assistant
packages for tourists, Malaysia is yet to do so. Thus, a comprehensive mobile tour package is
needed for Malaysia.
The objective of the project is to develop a well-designed tour assistant running on PDAs which
makes use of current trends in mobile applications such as the adoption of AI technique in
scheduling. Due to time and resource constraints, the project focuses on areas within and around
Kuala Lumpur and targets on short-stay and transit tourists.
Going through a thorough literature review and following the waterfall methodology, the project
has successfully developed a full package of mobile tour assistant including the back end and
front end. The project also makes contribution to creatively applying Genetic Algorithm, an AI
technique in plan auto-scheduling. The author hopes that the package will be of high commercial
value and contribute significantly to boosting Malaysia's tourism
Integrating Haptic Feedback into Mobile Location Based Services
Haptics is a feedback technology that takes advantage of the human sense of touch by
applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to a haptic-enabled device such as a mobile
phone. Historically, human-computer interaction has been visual - text and images on
the screen. Haptic feedback can be an important additional method especially in Mobile
Location Based Services such as knowledge discovery, pedestrian navigation and notification
systems. A knowledge discovery system called the Haptic GeoWand is a low
interaction system that allows users to query geo-tagged data around them by using
a point-and-scan technique with their mobile device. Haptic Pedestrian is a navigation
system for walkers. Four prototypes have been developed classified according to
the user’s guidance requirements, the user type (based on spatial skills), and overall
system complexity. Haptic Transit is a notification system that provides spatial information
to the users of public transport. In all these systems, haptic feedback is used
to convey information about location, orientation, density and distance by use of the
vibration alarm with varying frequencies and patterns to help understand the physical
environment. Trials elicited positive responses from the users who see benefit in being
provided with a “heads up” approach to mobile navigation. Results from a memory recall
test show that the users of haptic feedback for navigation had better memory recall
of the region traversed than the users of landmark images. Haptics integrated into a
multi-modal navigation system provides more usable, less distracting but more effective
interaction than conventional systems. Enhancements to the current work could include
integration of contextual information, detailed large-scale user trials and the exploration
of using haptics within confined indoor spaces
Hangout! A Comprehensive Outdoor Activity Planner & Information Sharing Platform
Hangout! is a mobile social-activity app, encouraging users to connect with friends and family. Users can specify their preferred leisure activity, whether that may be camping or caving, kayaking or surfing, running or rock climbing—whatever type of fun they are looking for. Combining a GPS location and a user’s history of outside recreational experiences, the app provides news about the area in real time, along with any emergency notifications for issuing caution.
As the name implies, Hangout! is an application celebrating the recreational places you frequent and the people you socialize with. High-quality imagery and video helps bolster a high aesthetic
Using haptics as an alternative to visual map interfaces for public transport information systems
The use of public transport for daily commutes or for journeys within a new city is
something most people rely on. To ensure users actively use public transport
services the availability and usability of information relevant to the traveler at any
given time is very important. In this paper we describe an interaction model for
users of public transport. The interaction model is divided into two main
components – the web interaction model and the mobile interaction model. The
web interface provides real-time bus information using a website. The mobile
interaction model provides similar information to the user through visual user
interfaces, gesture based querying, and haptic feedback. Improved access to transit
services is very dependent on the effectiveness of communicating information to
existing and potential passengers. We discuss the importance and benefits of our
multi-modal interaction in public transport systems. The importance of the
relatively new mode of haptic feedback is also discussed
- …