Encouraging persons to visit cultural sites through mini-games

Gamification has been recently proposed as a technique to improve user engagement in different activities, including visits to cultural sites and cultural tourism in general. We present the design, development and initial validation of the NEPTIS Poleis system, which consists of a mobile application and a Web interface for curators, allowing the definition, and subsequent fruition by users, of different minigames suitable for open-air assets

Discover Yixing: Using a Mobile Application to Promote Tourism and Marketing for a Small Chinese City

Tourism is an indispensable domain for many cities’ successful economic development. For tourists who are exploring popular cities and major resorts, there are a variety of mobile applications and websites can provide detailed information and instructions. It is convenient for independent travelers to use these tools to visit large and well-known cities. However, travel agencies, tourist applications, or multi-lingual travel guides do not cover some lesser-known cities. Although such cities may be underdeveloped in terms of economic conditions, some of these cities have potential to become valuable tourist resorts. Many lesser-known cities can’t provide professional travel agencies and/or multiple language guides because of limited economic conditions and limited city development. Some of these cities have potential to become well-developed tourist resorts, appealing to travelers all over the world by the natural sceneries, rich history, unique customs, and low consumption level. This thesis project explores the interaction, user interface, and experience design to develop a mobile application for foreign travelers who will visit the city named Yixing (pronounce as “yee shing” in Chinese) in China. In addition to assisting tourists, this mobile application can serve the city government to support tourism marketing and promotional strategies

E-Tourism A Study on Universal User Experience

The International University of Rabat (UIR) is working with the Moroccan government to develop a tourism mobile application. This application needed a user interface that was modern and intuitive for the diverse user base. We assisted UIR by making recommendations for their final user interface. We accomplished this by making user experience proposals based on features used in successful applications. We then collected data on how potential customers responded to each proposal. By the end of the project, the team delivered a user interface prototype and logo for the E-Tourism application

Catching and displaying memory cues for a mobile augmented memory system

This report goes over and details the progress of the 2013 COMP477 project “Augmenting Memory: The Digital Parrot on Mobile Devices” undertaken by Jake Bellamy and supervised by Annika Hinze at the University of Waikato. The report begins with an overview on the problem with remembering events in people’s lives and details the background information on the Digital Parrot system. It also describes the previous project that preceded this one, which began to conceptualize the Digital Parrot on mobile devices. It analyses problems with the current design of the system and addresses them. The report then goes on to conduct an in depth user study with the functioning version of the software. The user study finds design flaws and incorrect functionality in the application that would not have otherwise been apparent. Finally, the report concludes with a proposed user interface concept that addresses all of the issues found in the user study and describes how the system would work. It describes the initial implementation that has begun in building this system

Vertourist: Providing accuracy in language translations, using an online workforce

Language is our greatest mediator that allows us to relate to and understand each other. Linguistic boundaries cause a massive downside for travelers. They often find it difficult to communicate with locals in another country to learn more about the foreign culture, country, aesthetics and life. It’s even more critical for the people who are deaf. Human generated translation is much more accurate than computer generated translation. Travelers often rely on computer-generated translation that result in more confusion when the person is trying to communicate with in a foreign language. My thesis will address this issue using social media. A social network brings people together to help each other and exchange experiences. The ultimate goal is to eliminate language barriers for travelers by connecting them to interpreters through video chats. The thesis project explores interaction, user interface and experience design to build a digital media platform for interpreters andtravelers to use. In addition, to digital design elements, an identity for this service will also be designed in order to support marketing and promotional strategies

Effects of Dynamic Icons on the Perceived Usability in the Travel App

With the advancements in hardware and information technology, the use of dynamic icons in travel app interfaces to convey information has become increasingly common. The goal is to provide users with a novel experience that was not available in the static interfaces of the past. However, it remains unclear whether the availability and utilization of dynamic icons actually enhance the usability of apps and if it is done with genuine consideration for users\u27 benefit. This study aims to investigate how users perceive and use dynamic icons in the context of human-computer interaction, using a travel app as the research object. We propose a user-centered subjective and objective hybrid evaluation methodology to examine the perceived usability of dynamic icons, taking into account different evaluation characteristics at various usability levels. Our results indicate no significant statistical difference between the perceived usability of dynamic icons and static icons. We employed two indicators, perceived ease and subjective priority, to evaluate the perceived usability of dynamic icons. The findings show that the perceived ease of dynamic icons is higher than that of static icons, with an increase of 3.72% (I) and 3.09% (II) in respective studies, but with a reduction of 13.19% compared to static icons in study III. We conclude that although the perceived usability of dynamic icons may not be significantly different from static icons, they exhibit higher objective usability in users\u27 decision-making behavior

Incorporating Heuristic Evaluation (HE) in the Evaluation of Visual Design of the Eco-Tourism Smartphone App

Heuristic Evaluation (HE) has proven to be important in the development of different computer systems but has not been incorporated in the development of eco-tourism smartphone applications. This results inusability issues that significantly affect user experience (UX) as discussed in literature. This study reports the HE in the design and development of Niranur Agro Farm (NAF) eco-tourism smartphone applications, which could improve UX. Eight experts participated in this study, utilizing the SMART mobile usability heuristic developed for mobile application and the severity rating scale to determine usability issues. The HE findings indicated that 22 usability issues were identified. One issue was rated 4 (catastrophe), four issues were rated 3 (major problem), twelve issues were rated 2 (minor problem) and five issues were rated 1 (cosmetics). Although there are issues rated as 4 and 3, the majority of the issues were considered to be minor (1 and 2 on the scale). Results indicated that it is crucial to incorporate HE into the design and development of the eco-tourism smartphone app to minimize the usability issues faced by users. It further validated that utilizing a specific heuristic for smartphone applications would ensure that all usability issues are correctly categorized and remedied