Showing papers by "Nigel Davies published in 2000"

Developing a context-aware electronic tourist guide: some issues and experiences

Abstract: In this paper, we describe our experiences of developing and evaluating GUIDE, an intelligent electronic tourist guide. The GUIDE system has been built to overcome many of the limitations of the traditional information and navigation tools available to city visitors. For example, group-based tours are inherently inflexible with fixed starting times and fixed durations and (like most guidebooks) are constrained by the need to satisfy the interests of the majority rather than the specific interests of individuals. Following a period of requirements capture, involving experts in the field of tourism, we developed and installed a system for use by visitors to Lancaster. The system combines mobile computing technologies with a wireless infrastructure to present city visitors with information tailored to both their personal and environmental contexts. In this paper we present an evaluation of GUIDE, focusing on the quality of the visitor's experience when using the system.

Experiences of developing and deploying a context-aware tourist guide: the GUIDE project

Abstract: The GUIDE system has been developed to provide city visitors with a hand-held context-aware tourist guide. The system has been successfully deployed in a major tourist destination and is currently at the stage where it is publicly available to visitors who wish to explore the city. Reaching this stage has been the culmination of a number of distinct research efforts. In more detail, the development of GUIDE has involved: capturing a real set of application requirements, investigating the properties of a cell-based wireless communications technology in a built-up environment and deploying a network based on this technology around the city, designing and populating an information model to represent attractions and key buildings within the city, prototyping the development of a distributed application running across portable GUIDE units and stationary cell-servers and finally, evaluating the entire system during an extensive field-trial study. This paper reports on our results in each of these areas. We believe that through our work on the GUIDE project we have produced a blueprint for the development of interactive context-aware systems that should be of real value to those in the community who wish to develop such systems in a practical environment.

Exploiting space and location as a design framework for interactive mobile systems

Abstract: This article considers the importance of context in mobile systems. It considers a range of context-related issues and focus on location as a key issue for mobile systems. A design framework is described consisting of taxonomies of location, mobility, population, and device awareness. The design framework inorms the construction of a semantic model of space for mobile systems. The semantic model is reflected in a computational model built on a distriuted platform that allows contextual information to be shared across a number of mobile devices. The framework support the design of interactive mobile systems while the platform supports their rapid development.

Exploiting context to support social awareness and social navigation

Abstract: The utilization of context (such as user location and user profile) opens up many new avenues for encouraging social interaction. The web-based GUIDE system enables visitors to the city of Lancaster to interact with an information model that represents the city via a hand-held and context-aware tourist guide. Our current work is focusing on extending the functionality of the (previously single user) GUIDE system by making parts of the information model public. In particular, the physical location of visitors can now be represented in the information space in order to enable a form of social awareness among city visitors. In addition, visitors can also change the information space by, for example, augmenting existing descriptions of the city's attractions with their own ratings. We believe that explicitly capturing and tagging the context associated with ratings provides a powerful mechanism for automatically tailoring information presented to the user.

Providing Tailored (Context-Aware) Information to City Visitors

Abstract: The GUIDE system has been developed in order to provide city visitors with an intelligent and context-aware tourist guide. The system has been deployed in the city of Lancaster and integrates the use of hand-held personal computing technologies, wireless communications, context-awareness and adaptive hypermedia. This paper focuses on the role of adaptive hypermedia within the GUIDE system and the techniques used to tailor or adapt the presentation of web-based information. The context used by GUIDE includes the visitors personal context, e.g. the visitors current location and personal profile, and the environmental context, e.g. the opening times of the citys attractions. Following a field trial based evaluation, in which positive feedback was received, the system is now publicly available to visitors who wish to explore the city.

Architectural Requirements for the Effective Support of Adaptive Mobile Applications

Abstract: Mobile applications are required to operate in environments that change. Specifically, the availability of resources and services may change significantly during typical system operation. As a consequence, mobile applications need to be capable of adapting to these changes to ensure they offer the best possible level of service to the user. Our experiences of developing adaptive applications have led us to believe that existing middleware fails to provide the necessary support for such applications. Moreover, we believe that current research in this area is also failing to address the core requirements of adaptive mobile systems. In this paper we present a set of requirements for future mobile middleware which have been derived by considering the shortcomings of existing approaches and the needs of application developers. Key among these requirements is the need to support coordinated action between application and system components and the resolution of conflicts caused by the need to adapt to multiple contextual triggers. The paper concludes with the presentation of an architectural framework within which middleware researchers can deploy solutions to the problems identified.

Sharing (location) context to facilitate collaboration between city visitors

Abstract: The sharing of contextual information between individuals is a notion that often sparks emotional debate. It is interesting to note that the majority of existing work on sharing contextual information, especially location, has focused on the privacy issues raised in the work domain. This paper describes our initial investigation into sharing context in the leisure domain. More specifically we investigate how location context may be usefully shared between city visitors. For example, visitors may benefit by i) knowing the whereabouts of family members, or, ii) determining the popularity of attractions based on the number of visits. Additionally the sharing of location might also encourage communication between visitors that are not exploring the city as part of a group. For example, noticing that a fellow GUIDE user is located at the city castle would be helpful if I could then contact the visitor to request his or her opinion of the castle.

Architectural ideas for the support of adaptive context-aware applications

Abstract: Keith Cheverst, Christos Efstratiou, Nigel Davies and Adrian Friday Distributed Multimedia Research Group, Lancaster University, e-mail: kc@comp.lancs.ac.uk

Places to Stay on the Move: Software Architectures for Mobile User Interfaces

Abstract: Architectural design has an important effect on usability, most notably on temporal properties. This paper investigates software architecture options for mobile user interfaces, in particular those for collaborative systems. One of the new features of mobile systems, as compared with fixed networks, is the connection point to the physical network, the point of presence (PoP), which forms an additional location for code and data. This allows architectures that bring computation closer to the users, hence reducing feedback and feedthrough delays. A consequence of using PoPs is that code and data have to be mobile within the network, leading to potential security problems.

Position paper: the role of platforms and operating systems in supporting home networks

Abstract: As researchers look beyond the PC there is increasing interest in developing and deploying sophisticated home networks. Such networks might allow the seamless integration of information and services produced both within the home and externally, enabling applications such as the purchase of on-line AV content, tight coupling between kitchen sensors and "Web Van" order forms, and home remote control. From a manufacturers perspective, particularly those manufacturers traditionally associated with business computing, the home market is perceived as a major new opportunity to expand sales. As a consequence, home networks have been an area of intense activity in recent years with the emergence of a range of network solutions (e.g. HomeRF, HomePNA, IEEE 1394, Bluetooth) and middleware to support device interoperability (e.g. HAVi, Jini, UPnP). This focus on networking technologies and middleware platforms suggests that the area of operating systems for home networking devices has received relatively little attention. In this paper we discuss the reasons behind this apparent omission and consider the technological landscape within which operating systems for the home must be researched, developed and deployed.