Using mobile technology to facilitate the user experience of group holiday decision-making

With the increasing expenditure of international tourism around the world, the topic of studying group holiday decision-makings has drawn attentions in the fields of tourism research and business management (Mottiar & Quinn, 2004; Wang et al., 2004; Carr, 2005; Jacobsen & Munar, 2012; Assayer et al., 2011). Yet, the user experience of tourists in groups has been reported to be in need of improvements (Garcia et al., 2009). For example, such user experience lacks effective information sharing among group members, a convenient communication environment, and an efficient decision-making support (Decrop, 2005). A possible solution is technology, such as smart phones, that this technology has evolved from single-purpose communication devices into dynamic tools that support users in a wide variety of tasks (Böhmer et al., 2011). This thesis is devoted to studying the user experience related to technology-supported group holiday decision-making. It aims to investigate how mobile technology can help a group of people to make holiday decisions with a view to enhance the user experience. This thesis reviews theoretical approaches to help understand the concepts and related works (Chapter 2). Research methods are also discussed, including the framework of user-centred design employed in this research, and the challenges of exploring user experience in this context (Chapter 3). This thesis investigates the user experience of how tourist groups plan their trips, including an understanding of user behaviour and requirements. It proposes a model of group trip planning process to describe the core elements of group holiday planning (Chapter 4). Then, it explores a number of factors that influence the group holiday planning process (Chapter 5). Next, tourism information presentation is examined in terms of exploring the characteristics of different types of textual tourism information on the Internet and how the perceptions of tourists are affected by these different types of information accordingly (Chapter 6). Design implications are derived and discussed to guide the design of technology, for the purposes of facilitating group holiday planning process. Chapter 7 describes the three key elements considered in this design of mobile technology: usability, personalisation, and enjoyable user experience. The development of a prototype of this technology, #GT-Planner, is also elaborated (Chapter 7). Finally, this thesis investigates the user experience of this prototype (#GT-Planner), in which both subjective approaches (i.e., questionnaires and interviews) and objective approach (i.e., physiological measurement) are employed (Chapter 8). #GT-Planner is shown to facilitate the group holiday decision-making process and result in an enriched user experience. The thesis primarily discusses the understandings of the user experience of group holiday decision-making, the design implications for group holiday decision-making, the framework of user-centred design, and methods for examining the users in a group and evaluating the technology. Finally, findings and conclusions are specified and highlighted, along with a discussion of the contributions derived from this thesis and the avenues for future work

Informal Online Decision Making: Current Practices and Support System Design

Existing group decision support systems are too complex to support lightweight, informal decision making made popular by the amount of information available on the Web. From an examination of related work, an online survey and a formative study to examine how people currently use the Web for decision support, we present a set of design recommendations towards the development of an informal Web decision support tool

FM radio: family interplay with sonic mementos

Digital mementos are increasingly problematic, as people acquire large amounts of digital belongings that are hard to access and often forgotten. Based on fieldwork with 10 families, we designed a new type of embodied digital memento, the FM Radio. It allows families to access and play sonic mementos of their previous holidays. We describe our underlying design motivation where recordings are presented as a series of channels on an old fashioned radio. User feedback suggests that the device met our design goals: being playful and intriguing, easy to use and social. It facilitated family interaction, and allowed ready access to mementos, thus sharing many of the properties of physical mementos that we intended to trigger

The dialogic aspects of Mantle of the Expert pedagogy used to teach devising at NCEA Level 2 in a Year 12 classroom "I don't think it's about credits- definitely not about credits"

This inquiry sets out to gather and consider student and teacher perceptions about the affordances and constraints of using Mantle of the Expert pedagogy, to support teaching and learning, through the process of devising drama at NCEA Level in a Year 12 classroom. Questions about the role of the teacher in a senior secondary drama classroom, and the epistemological frames used in the exploration of creative drama making formed the basis of the inquiry. The notion of a “learning community” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p.34) in which everyone “including the teacher, is a learner” is identified and the idea of “shared learning” is explored in contrast to traditional transmission models of teaching. The case study was conducted in a North Island secondary school where teachers and students were positioned together as members of THEATRON, a fictional professional theatre company. THEATRON, commissioned by an artistic director of a national arts festival, were to develop original, devised drama for festival audiences which captured the essence of “What it means to be human”. This qualitative study generated data from interviews with the class teacher and the students, observations of the lessons throughout the devising process and student documentation developed in both electronic and hard copy formats. Findings from the study, considered in the light of Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, indicated that the dialogic aspects of the core elements of the Mantle of the Expert pedagogy could provide rich opportunities for purposeful creative collaboration, through student autonomy, to develop more effectively in the performance groups

The effects of travelling reasons on social media resources and tourist expectations

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo examinar la relación de las fuentes del contenido generado por el usuario (UGC) en las redes sociales, que proviene generalmente de fuentes de lazos fuertes y fuentes de lazos débiles, en la generación de expectativas turísticas sobre los recursos básicos y los recursos o factores de apoyo de los destinos. También se analiza el efecto moderador de las razones para viajar en la relación de las fuentes UGC y las expectativas turísticas. Para esta investigación, se recogieron 375 encuestas. Los resultados señalan que las razones o motivos del viaje son un factor importante a considerar en la generación de las expectativas turísticas, y en nuestro caso, el UGC que provenía de las fuentes de lazos débiles influyen de manera significativa en la generación de expectativas del turista cuando viaja por motivos de trabajo.This research aims to examine the relationship of user generated content (UGC) sources in social media which is provided by strong-tie sources and weak-tie sources on tourist expectations on core resources and factor supporting of the destinations, and also analyze the moderate effect of the reasons of travelling on the relationship of UGC sources and tourist expectations. 375 samples were collected. The results demonstrate that travelling reasons is an important factor to consider about the origin of tourist expectations. The UGC that was provided by weak-tie source has influence on tourist expectations when they travel with business reason

Getting personal: exploring the usage of persona in order to optimize the involvement of a living lab panel

iMinds Living Labs started with living lab research in 2009. Living lab research involves gathering user feedback on innovations implemented in a real-life context (Eriksson et al., 2005). This can be facilitated by means of a panel-based approach (Schuurman et al., 2012). In order to keep a panel motivated for participating in living lab research it can be beneficial to generate a sense of belonging to a community. Logghe et al. (2014) examined the motivations and behavior of the panel members and concluded that there are four groups of panel member types, each with their own motivations and behavior patterns. But how can a living lab get to know its panel members better? How can every panel member be approached in their preferred way? How can every panel member be stimulated to keep on participating in living lab research? How can a community feeling be created? In order to gather more information about each panel member type, we developed a four way segmentation of the panel which we translated into four distinct persona. These persona will be used as a basis for community building, a future panel kit, experimenting with research approaches,… supplemented with other methodologies

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change

Weather and Climate Information for Tourism

The tourism sector is one of the largest and fastest growing global industries and is a significant contributor to national and local economies around the world. The interface between climate and tourism is multifaceted and complex, as climate represents both a vital resource to be exploited and an important limiting factor that poses risks to be managed by the tourism industry and tourists alike. All tourism destinations and operators are climate-sensitive to a degree and climate is a key influence on travel planning and the travel experience. This chapter provides a synopsis of the capacities and needs for climate services in the tourism sector, including current and emerging applications of climate services by diverse tourism end-users, and a discussion of key knowledge gaps, research and capacity-building needs and partnerships that are required to accelerate the application of climate information to manage risks to climate variability and facilitate successful adaptation to climate change