Developing Adaptive and Personalized Mobile Applications: A Framework and Design Issues

The rapid growth of mobile technology has expedited ubiquitous information access via handheld devices. However, the fundamental natures of mobile information systems are different from those of desktop applications in terms of purpose of use, device features, communication networks, and working environments. This poses various challenges to mobile information systems on how to deliver and present multimedia content in an effective and adaptive manner. One of the major challenges is to deliver personalized information to the right person in a preferred format based on the changing environment. This paper proposes an innovative framework for developing mobile applications that deliver personalized, context-aware, and adaptive content to mobile users. The framework consists of four major components: information selection, content analysis, media transcoding, and customized presentation. It can be applied to a variety of mobile applications such as mobile web, news alert services, and mobile commerce

Interface Design for Mobile Applications

Interface design is arguably one of the most important issues in the development of mobile applications. Mobile users often suffer from the poor interface design that seriously hinders the usability of those mobile applications. The major challenge in the interface design of mobile applications is caused by the unique features of mobile devices, such as small screen size, low resolution, and inefficient data entry methods. Therefore, there is a pressing need of theoretical frameworks or guidelines for designing effective and user-friendly interfaces for mobile applications. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this paper proposes a novel framework for the design of effective mobile interfaces. This framework consists of four major components, namely information presentation, data entry methods, mobile users, and context. We also provide a set of practical interface design guidelines and some insights into what factors should be taken into consideration while designing interfaces for mobile applications

User-Centered Context-Aware Mobile Applications―The Next Generation of Personal Mobile Computing

Context-aware mobile applications are systems that can sense clues about the situational environment and enable appropriate mechanisms of interaction between end users and systems, making mobile devices more intelligent, adaptive, and personalized. In order to better understand such systems and the potentials and barriers of their development and practical use, this paper provides a state-of-the-art overview of this emerging field. Unlike previous literature reviews that mainly focus on technological aspects of such systems, we examine this field mainly from application and research methodology perspectives. We will present major types of current context-aware mobile applications, and discuss research methodologies used in existing studies and their limitations, and highlight potential future research

Adaptive Web Content Presentation on Mobile Handheld Devices

As mobile handheld devices are being used increasingly for Web access, ease of use has become an important issue for users. However, the unique physical features and inherent constraints of handheld devices and wireless networks present a number of critical challenges for both taking advantage of the convenience of mobile devices and enabling efficient Web access. In addition, users have different information needs and preferences. They want to receive content that is customized to fit their information needs and desires. Therefore, adapting the original Web content dynamically to cope with the constraints of mobile handheld devices, the nature of wireless networks, and user preferences becomes very important. Although there have been some preliminary studies on the adaptation of Web content for mobile devices, research in this field is still at its early stage. There is both a lack of theoretical frameworks and guidance for building adaptive Web applications as well as empirical evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of content adaptation on Web access through mobile handheld devices. In order to meet this challenge, this dissertation presents an innovative theoretical framework, based on the literature review and related theories, for developing adaptive mobile Web applications. The framework consists of three major adaptation processes: content selection, content customization, and presentation adaptation. Content selection refers to filtering irrelevant content and delivering only what is interesting to users. Content customization is the tailoring of content to fit the characteristics of mobile handheld devices and wireless networks. Presentation adaptation involves generating effective Web content presentation for easy Web browsing and searching. These adaptation processes utilize information from various sources to generate adaptive content and presentation in real time, based on the preferences of users, the features of mobile handheld devices, the wireless network status, and the contextual environments. A prototype system called M-Web has been implemented based on the proposed framework. It uses a novel hybrid approach to presentation adaptation, which integrates three presentation adaptation techniques, namely tree-view adaptation, hierarchical summarization, and personalized visual search. Another major contribution of this dissertation research is to empirically examine the effect of presentation adaptation on mobile Web browsing. A carefully designed and controlled laboratory study involving 60 participants was conducted to evaluate the effect of three presentation adaptation techniques on users' information searching/browsing performance and users' perception of mobile Web browsing. The results indicated that presentation adaptation had a significant positive impact on users' performance and perception of Web browsing and information searching. When compared to the system without presentation adaptation, the M-Web system reduced users' searching time, increased users' searching accuracy, and improved users' perception of accessing the Web via mobile handheld devices

The Effects of Tree-View Based Presentation Adaptation on Model Web Browsing

Accessing the Web from mobile handheld devices has become increasingly common. However, accomplishing that task remains challenging mainly due to the physical constraints of handheld devices and the static presentation of Web pages. Adapting the presentation of Web pages is, therefore, critical to enabling effective mobile Web browsing and information searching. 　Based on cognitive fit theory and information foraging theory, we propose a novel hybrid approach to adapting Web page presentation that integrates three types of adaptation techniques, namely tree-view, hierarchical text summarization, and colored keyword highlighting. By following the design science research framework, we implemented the proposed approach on handheld devices and empirically evaluated the effects of presentation adaptation on mobile Web browsing. The results show that presentation adaptation significantly improves user performance and perception of mobile Web browsing. We also discover that the positive impact of presentation adaptation is moderated by the complexity of an information search task. The findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for the design and implementation of mobile Web applications

Culture and media effects on group decision making under majority influence

The purpose of this study is to address questions on how collectivistic and individualistic cultures affect majority influence in a group decision making task when there are differences in media richness. We developed a theory that explains and predicts these phenomena, and tested hypotheses using 112 fourperson groups that consisted of Chinese and U.S. participants. As predicted, we found strong evidence indicating that there were significant differences between Chinese and U.S. groups, with Chinese groups being more prone to follow the view of majority. Further, traditional face-to-face (FtF) unsupported groups experienced the strongest majority influence. We found that GSS use helped diminish majority influence in both Chinese and U.S. groups. These findings have broad theoretical and applied implications, which are discussed in this paper. © 2006 IEEE.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex