Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed

Can Adaptive Interfaces Improve the Usability of Mobile Applications?

Abstract. Mobile applications are becoming increasingly widespread and complex. Many of these applications suffer from usability issues, including information overload, screen clutter, lack of task support and limited interaction me chanisms. Adaptive user interfaces (AUIs) have been proposed to address some of these usability issues. The aim of this paper is to investigate how AUIs can improve the usability of mobile applications. This paper discusses several simple types of adaptation that have been shown to yield significant usability benefits for mobile applications. Two case studies are presented to illustrate how an AUI can be incorporated into different types of mobile applications. This paper also discusses the lessons learned from these case studies and presents some implications for designing adaptive systems in the future

A mobile tour guide app for sustainable tourism

Portugal has had a flourishing tourism sector for the past few years. In fact, Portugal’s tourism boom has made the industry one of the biggest contributors to the national economy and the largest employer. In the year 2019, Portugal had a total of 27 million tourists, surpassing once again the record established in the previous year. However, tourism also brings a series of unintended negative side effects, such as overcrowding. The Santa Maria Maior historic district in Lisbon is being particularly affected by this problem. The work undertaken in this dissertation is part of the Sustainable Tourism Crowding project, that aims to mitigate the overcrowding phenomenon in this district, by fostering a balanced distribution of visitors while promoting the visitation of sustainable points of interest. This dissertation focuses on developing a mobile app prototype targeted at tourists, through which these sustainable walking tour recommendations can be delivered. To validate the functional requirements of the prototype, more specifically the trip creation process, a series of unit tests, integration tests, and manual tests were developed. To evaluate the usability of the prototype, a user-centered approach was adopted during the design stage, in which two usability techniques were conducted with members of ISCTE’s research center ISTAR and partners from the Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria Maior, that guided and validated the decisions made. The achieved prototype contains mechanisms for measuring tourists’ adherence to the recommended tours using the Dynamic Time Warping algorithm, which raises new research opportunities on tourists’ behaviour.O desenvolvimento próspero do setor turístico em Portugal nos últimos anos fez da indústria um dos maiores contribuintes para a economia nacional e o maior empregador do país. No ano de 2019, Portugal recebeu um total de 27 milhões de turistas, ultrapassando uma vez mais uma vez o recorde estabelecido no ano anterior. No entanto, o turismo traz também uma série de efeitos secundários negativos não intencionais, tais como overcrowding. A freguesia histórica de Santa Maria Maior em Lisboa está a ser particularmente afetada por este problema. O trabalho desenvolvido nesta dissertação faz parte do projeto de pesquisa Sustainable Tourism Crowding, que visa mitigar o fenómeno de overcrowding nesta freguesia, promovendo uma distribuição equilibrada dos visitantes e incentivando a visita de pontos de interesse sustentáveis. Esta dissertação foca-se no desenvolvimento de uma aplicação móvel protótipo destinada a turistas, através do qual recebem recomendações de visitas sustentáveis. Para validar os requisitos funcionais do protótipo, mais especificamente o processo de criação de visitas, foram desenvolvidos testes unitários, testes de integração, e testes manuais. Para avaliar a usabilidade do protótipo, foi adotada uma abordagem centrada no utilizador durante a fase de conceção, em que foram utilizadas duas técnicas de usabilidade em parceria com o ISTAR (centro de investigação do ISCTE) e com a Junta de Freguesia de Santa Maria Maior, cujos resultados guiaram e validaram as decisões tomadas. O protótipo desenvolvido contém mecanismos para medir a aderência dos turistas às recomendações sugeridas através do algoritmo Dynamic Time Warping, proporcionando novas oportunidades de pesquisa nesta área

Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia : workshop : proceedings, 3rd, Sonthofen, Germany, July 14, 2001 and Aarhus, Denmark, August 15, 2001

This paper presents two empirical usability studies based on techniques from Human-Computer Interaction (HeI) and software engineering, which were used to elicit requirements for the design of a hypertext generation system. Here we will discuss the findings of these studies, which were used to motivate the choice of adaptivity techniques. The results showed dependencies between different ways to adapt the explanation content and the document length and formatting. Therefore, the system's architecture had to be modified to cope with this requirement. In addition, the system had to be made adaptable, in addition to being adaptive, in order to satisfy the elicited users' preferences

Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia : workshop : proceedings, 3rd, Sonthofen, Germany, July 14, 2001 and Aarhus, Denmark, August 15, 2001

This paper presents two empirical usability studies based on techniques from Human-Computer Interaction (HeI) and software engineering, which were used to elicit requirements for the design of a hypertext generation system. Here we will discuss the findings of these studies, which were used to motivate the choice of adaptivity techniques. The results showed dependencies between different ways to adapt the explanation content and the document length and formatting. Therefore, the system's architecture had to be modified to cope with this requirement. In addition, the system had to be made adaptable, in addition to being adaptive, in order to satisfy the elicited users' preferences

A New Effective Subject Extraction for Travel Package Suggestions

The new idea suggestion framework is applying in numerous applications.in this task investigate the online travel data of visitors to give customized travel bundle. Be that as it may, conventional suggestion framework cannot giving better travel bundle to sightseers from different geo-realistic areas. Numerous specialized difficulties are accessible for planning and execution of proficient travel bundle suggestion framework. Proposing another model named as traveller region season point model alongside Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm which extricates the elements like areas, travel seasons of different scenes. Presenting cocktail approach for better customized travel bundle proposal. Further Extending TAST model with the vacationer connection territory season subject model incorporates relationship among the visitors. In the long run our proposed methodology is effective to give better bundle suggestion for travellers

Context Aware Middleware Architectures: Survey and Challenges

Abstract: Context aware applications, which can adapt their behaviors to changing environments, are attracting more and more attention. To simplify the complexity of developing applications, context aware middleware, which introduces context awareness into the traditional middleware, is highlighted to provide a homogeneous interface involving generic context management solutions. This paper provides a survey of state-of-the-art context aware middleware architectures proposed during the period from 2009 through 2015. First, a preliminary background, such as the principles of context, context awareness, context modelling, and context reasoning, is provided for a comprehensive understanding of context aware middleware. On this basis, an overview of eleven carefully selected middleware architectures is presented and their main features explained. Then, thorough comparisons and analysis of the presented middleware architectures are performed based on technical parameters including architectural style, context abstraction, context reasoning, scalability, fault tolerance, interoperability, service discovery, storage, security & privacy, context awareness level, and cloud-based big data analytics. The analysis shows that there is actually no context aware middleware architecture that complies with all requirements. Finally, challenges are pointed out as open issues for future work

А/В тестирование как эффективное средство для адаптации пользовательского интерфейса при итерационной модели разработки приложений для мобильных устройств

Changing the user interface always entails risks of decreasing application ergonomics and user churn. The purpose of this work is to find methods for changing the user interface without the need to use and increase the number of active users. Using Alpha/Beta testing and analysis of application metrics, it is possible to include design in each iteration and remotely manage the application configuration, which improves the user interface of the application. The way to integrate the UI modification and adaptation phase into an iterative software development model is proposed in this article. The successful user interface improvement experiments that have improved application metrics are described. In this work, the problem was highlighted, lack of information and control over user purchases, which negatively affected the number of purchases. A hypothesis is put forward that the user must have an effective visualization and control tool in the application. As a result of the experiment, the hypothesis was confirmed by an increase in the number of purchases and user activity. There was also a data security issue in the application, which put users at risk of data loss. An experiment was conducted to change the default value of user settings, which led to an increase of the positive metrics for using the data reservation functionality. The problem of polling users is also considered, which is an important component in the process of improving the ergonomics of an application. The method of remote user polling was used, which allowed to receive quick feedback from users and quickly respond to requests from users. The result of the work is the confirmation of the hypothesis of changes in the user interface in the cycles of the iterative development model, the positive dynamics of application metrics, as well as the satisfaction of users with the changes.Изменение пользовательского интерфейса всегда влечет риски уменьшения эргономики приложения и оттока пользователей. Целью данной работы является поиск методов изменения пользовательского интерфейса без ущерба удобству пользования и увеличению количества активных пользователей. При помощи Alpha/Beta тестирования и анализа метрик приложения возможно включить проектирование в каждую итерацию и удаленно управлять конфигурацией приложения, что позволяет улучшать пользовательский интерфейс приложения. В статье предложен способ интеграции этапа изменения пользовательского интерфейса и адаптации в итеративную модель разработки программных средств, а также описаны успешно проведенные опыты улучшения пользовательского интерфейса, которые позволили улучшить метрики приложения. В данной работе была выделена проблема недостаточной информативности и контроля за покупками пользователя, что негативно влияло на количество покупок. Выдвинута гипотеза о том, что пользователь должен иметь эффективный инструмент визуализации и контроля в приложении. В результате проведения эксперимента гипотеза была подтверждена увеличением количества покупок и активностью пользователей. В приложении также существовала проблема безопасности данных, что подвергало риску потери данных пользователей. Был проведен эксперимент по изменению значения по умолчанию пользовательской настройки, что привело к увеличению положительных метрик использования функционала резервации данных. Также рассмотрена проблема опроса пользователей, что является важной составляющей в процессе улучшения эргономики приложения. Была использована методика удаленного опроса пользователей, что позволило получать быструю обратную связь от пользователей и быстро реагировать на их запросы. Результатом работы является подтверждение гипотезы изменения пользовательского интерфейса в циклах итеративной модели разработки, положительная динамика метрик приложения, а также удовлетворение пользователей изменениями