Extended Decision Making in Tourism Information Systems

Abstract. E-commerce initiatives show that tourism data is one of the most accessed data in the Web. The problem is that a high number of users is rather unexperienced in Web use. The handling of tourism information systems is often a complex and time consuming process for tourists. To satisfy the tourists expectations it is inevitable to support the tourist in travel planning and decision making. Most tourism information systems offer a variety of sharp query functionalities with some relaxation mechanisms but lack in providing vague results or alternatives. To meet the tourists interests and preferences this paper presents two methodological approaches to support the tourist. The first is the case-based reasoning approach, which gives tourists answers to "what is recommended " by deriving individual travel suggestions from previous cases stored in the knowledge base. The second is a visual approach through touristic maps, which give the tourist a good impression of "what is where " to decide which of the resulting objects is located best regarding the tourists needs and interests. Key words. Case-based reasoning (CBR), decision making in tourism

Accessible Content Generation an Integral Part of Accessible Web Design

AbstractThe importance of accessible Web design significantly rose within the last years. This is also reflected in a growing set of legal regulations that demand for accessible Web design. Unfortunately these regulations usually consider technical accessibility only, the complexity of the language used plays a minor role. Thus a huge group of people cannot make use of the content presented on Web pages. This paper discusses in detail the important interaction of accessible Web design and Easy-to-Read to generate accessible content and shows which phases of the design process demand for intensive user involvement

TOWARDS AN ONTOLOGY-BASED CUSTOMIZATION APPROACH FOR SUPPORTING PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

People with disabilities encounter serious limitations in interacting with their home environment since their requirements are not met properly. Personal assisting devices interacting with the services offered by smart home environments can help to improve the quality of their lives. A major prerequisite for this is to provide an appropriate customization architecture which allows to reason about the person’s current situation in terms of personal, technical and natural context and to adapt the home environment’s services accordingly. This paper proposes a customization approach based on an ontology which comprehensively represents the situation of persons with special needs for the purpose of adapting their home environment’s services. 1

Active Data Integration for Distribution of Up-to-date Tourism Media

Abstract. The importance of the World Wide Web to gather information on any topic in the field of tourism grows more and more. This is because of the vast quantity and broad spectrum of tourism information that are already distributed on various Web sites. The information requested by the tourist is diversified. Every information, which can be associated with the vacation, could be of interest. The efficient use oft the existing information is limited by time wasting locating and filtering of information in the Web. Missing options for defining personal preferences requires the tourist to scan the whole information provided. Beside tourists also provider of touristic products use information systems to make information of different categories available for their clients. Information technology support could achieve tremendous time saving, especially if the generation of media and the distribution have to be done periodically. The approach described in this paper demonstrates how automating the collecting, rehashing and distributing of the information can unburden information provider and consumer.

AsTeRICS, a Flexible Assistive Technology Construction Set

AbstractOver the last decades a considerable number of information and communication technology based Assistive Technology devices have become available for people with disabilities. These Assistive Technology devices often ask for adaptation of software and/or hardware to fit the users abilities before they can be used.Within the Project AsTeRICS, a flexible and affordable construction set for the implementation of user driven assistive technologies solutions will be developed. This allows the combination of different sensors to process and manipulate the sensor data to control any supported device. This paper will show how a webcam mouse (head tracker) and a single switch mouse can easily be created and tailored to the user needs and possibilities. Additionally, results of user tests with the head tracker will be presented