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

CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

TOWARDS DEEP LEARNING FOR ARCHITECTURE: A MONUMENT RECOGNITION MOBILE APP

Abstract. In recent years, the diffusion of large image datasets and an unprecedented computational power have boosted the development of a class of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms referred to as deep learning (DL). Among DL methods, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have proven particularly effective in computer vision, finding applications in many disciplines. This paper introduces a project aimed at studying CNN techniques in the field of architectural heritage, a still to be developed research stream. The first steps and results in the development of a mobile app to recognize monuments are discussed. While AI is just beginning to interact with the built environment through mobile devices, heritage technologies have long been producing and exploring digital models and spatial archives. The interaction between DL algorithms and state-of-the-art information modeling is addressed, as an opportunity to both exploit heritage collections and optimize new object recognition techniques.</p

Senseable Spaces: from a theoretical perspective to the application in augmented environments

Grazie all’ enorme diffusione di dispositivi senzienti nella vita di tutti i giorni, nell’ ultimo decennio abbiamo assistito ad un cambio definitivo nel modo in cui gli utenti interagiscono con lo spazio circostante. Viene coniato il termine Spazio Sensibile, per descrivere quegli spazi in grado di fornire servizi contestuali agli utenti, misurando e analizzando le dinamiche che in esso avvengono, e di reagire conseguentemente a questo continuo flusso di dati bidirezionale. La ricerca è stata condotta abbracciando diversi domini di applicazione, le cui singole esigenze hanno reso necessario testare il concetto di Spazi Sensibili in diverse declinazioni, mantenendo al centro della ricerca l’utente, con la duplice accezione di end-user e manager. Molteplici sono i contributi rispetto allo stato dell’ arte. Il concetto di Spazio Sensibile è stato calato nel settore dei Beni Culturali, degli Spazi Pubblici, delle Geosciences e del Retail. I casi studio nei musei e nella archeologia dimostrano come l’ utilizzo della Realtà Aumentata possa essere sfruttata di fronte a un dipinto o in outdoor per la visualizzazione di modelli complessi, In ambito urbano, il monitoraggio di dati generati dagli utenti ha consentito di capire le dinamiche di un evento di massa, durante il quale le stesse persone fruivano di servizi contestuali. Una innovativa applicazione di Realtà Aumentata è stata come servizio per facilitare l’ ispezione di fasce tampone lungo i fiumi, standardizzando flussi di dati e modelli provenienti da un Sistema Informativo Territoriale. Infine, un robusto sistema di indoor localization è stato istallato in ambiente retail, per scopi classificazione dei percorsi e per determinare le potenzialità di un punto vendita. La tesi è inoltre una dimostrazione di come Space Sensing e Geomatica siano discipline complementari: la geomatica consente di acquisire e misurare dati geo spaziali e spazio temporali a diversa scala, lo Space Sensing utilizza questi dati per fornire servizi all’ utente precisi e contestuali.Given the tremendous growth of ubiquitous services in our daily lives, during the last few decades we have witnessed a definitive change in the way users' experience their surroundings. At the current state of art, devices are able to sense the environment and users’ location, enabling them to experience improved digital services, creating synergistic loop between the use of the technology, and the use of the space itself. We coined the term Senseable Space, to define the kinds of spaces able to provide users with contextual services, to measure and analyse their dynamics and to react accordingly, in a seamless exchange of information. Following the paradigm of Senseable Spaces as the main thread, we selected a set of experiences carried out in different fields; central to this investigation there is of course the user, placed in the dual roles of end-user and manager. The main contribution of this thesis lies in the definition of this new paradigm, realized in the following domains: Cultural Heritage, Public Open Spaces, Geosciences and Retail. For the Cultural Heritage panorama, different pilot projects have been constructed from creating museum based installations to developing mobile applications for archaeological settings. Dealing with urban areas, app-based services are designed to facilitate the route finding in a urban park and to provide contextual information in a city festival. We also outlined a novel application to facilitate the on-site inspection by risk managers thanks to the use of Augmented Reality services. Finally, a robust indoor localization system has been developed, designed to ease customer profiling in the retail sector. The thesis also demonstrates how Space Sensing and Geomatics are complementary to one another, given the assumption that the branches of Geomatics cover all the different scales of data collection, whilst Space Sensing gives one the possibility to provide the services at the correct location, at the correct time