mobile guide in context

1º Encontro sobre Tecnologias e Políticas Públicas para Televisão Digital

2012-02-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

O 1º Encontro sobre Tecnologias e Políticas Públicas para Televisão Digital é realizado no âmbito do Centro Interdisciplinar de Tecnologias Interativas (CITI) - Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa recém criado pelo Laboratório de Sistemas Integráveis (LSI) da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo.

O objetivo deste evento é reunir pesquisadores convidados, criando a oportunidade de conhecer mais projetos de várias áreas do conhecimento sobre políticas públicas e tecnologias para televisão digital, debatendo ideias que possam contribuir para a formação de possíveis parcerias futuras.

Estarei lá! Programação

6. Ciclo de Estudos em Design - Design para mídia móveis

2011-10-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

Seminário Internacional m-Todos: tendências e oportunidades da mobilidade digital

2010-11-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

M-todos was a great event to have an overview of what is happening in the world of mobility. Mobile content, Mobile interface, Mobile learning, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Games, Mobile transmedia storytelling and Mobile games were the base of the discussions. I presented a poster about the methodology that I'm using in my work.

More information can be found in http://seminariocapesmecdgu2010.blogspot.com/

Call for participants

2010-06-28T03:21:00.001-07:00

Are you interested in culturalheritage?

We are looking for participantsto do a small sculpture trail on a mobile phone in Brighton. This experiment ispart of a major project that aims to generate design principles for developingmobile guides in cultural heritage settings.
The tour takes about 30 – 45 min.

Email Heloisa Candello: heloisacsp@gmail.com

Prototype is done! Recruiting participants

2010-06-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Finally, the prototype is done!!! Working perfectly with audio and video flash files on the mobile phone. After all the research in which mobile phones could support Flash, HTC Hero won. The prototype was made in Flash CS3, then rebuilt again (some parts) for Flash lite 2.1 and then Flash CS5 and saved in Flash lite 3.1.

Last week six experts did a cognitive walk through and suggested some improvements on the prototype. Now I think it is finally ready to test with final users (I'm still recruiting them). Participants will follow a short trail with the mobile guide and answer a questionnaire. I want to do the study with 36 participants ( first time visitors, residents and locals).

I have to say thanks to Locomatrix for lending the phone that we are using in the study. Micah for helping me build the prototype and my supervisors for the support.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with my supervisors to check the experiment before the user testing.

Well, If you are in Brighton or thinking of visit this beautiful city let me know your interest in the research.

Low-tech prototype

Requirements for mobile cultural guides

2010-02-18T04:04:00.000-08:00

Finally, I finished the requirements stage for my research in mobile guides. Two field studies with 32 participants, 26 trails in Brighton UK. In the first study participants were using a booklet and the second a mobile guide to access information of monuments in Brighton. Now, I'm agruping and comparing the studies to have a set of main requirements for the prototype. From the booklet study participants were keen to read more information and consequently give feedback about content.

From the mobile phone experience feedback of interaction and audio content were highlighted. The same content from the booklet study was used in the mobile phone study (android, touch screen). We wanted to indentify if visitors act in different ways when using the mobile technology and gather requirements for designing information for mobile cultural guides.

Play and tour audio guide (lite)

2009-12-08T03:44:00.000-08:00

Play and tour audio guide (lite)

Following the introduction screen, there is the city maps screen. You can select the part of the map that you are interested to see. The points of interest are available to select, in different colour. When you select you see the name of the place, you can press on the name and a new screen will appear with an audio file about the POI and an option to go to Google maps (show on the map/show route). The problem is that when you go to Google a map, that needs an Internet connection, you cannot back to the application. You have to open the app again to see more points of interest.

In the base of screens you have always available “the map”, “POI” and “About” icons. The POI allows the users to choose among three options “All”, “Categories” and “Search”. The first show a list of all POI in the city. The second shows the points of interest by colourful categories such as: “Tourists Points”, “Essentials” and “Museums”. It is not clear what is the difference between the first two categories because all the essentials POI they are tourists points. Additionally, museums are essential or not? I like that they use different colours for each category but the content distinction is not clear.

The last icon is concerned to the application itself. Options such as: “Description”, “How it works” and “About us”. Actually, I think that the description is not so useful. In my point of view, if you are in the application why would like to know the description. Before buying the application it is extremely relevant but not after that. “How it works?” doesn’t guide the user is more like an advertisement to the product.

Overall, it is very easy to use and it is based on Audio and not in text. The Google Maps is a good option for way finding, but should be integrated to the app.

Call for participants

2009-10-21T03:29:00.001-07:00

Over the Air 2009

2009-09-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

Over the Air 2009 was great.

Interesting presentation given by Dr. Philip Rhodes. It was a mix of research and market experience well applied. He gave us an overview of user experience in applications and widgets. He mentioned that we have the heuristics principles in usability, but without observing real users they don’t make much sense. Observing users we can identify their brand familiarity and user experience. It makes me think that it is a cumbersome activity to try to develop for different brands, different user models according to the device characteristics. Sometimes, in my case, that it is a research project, it is better to focus in one (brand) way of interaction. He also pointed out that it is important to know which apps users use and how people understand interfaces. Additionally, he presented some characteristics of the mobile technology that should be considerate when developing apps, such as: it is a communication device, spontaneous, geo-sensitive, short temporal usage, focused activity ( it is better to have one feature, option in which users do very well that to have a lot of choices that they don’t know what to do) and engaging. He showed an app case study. Participatory design study was undertaken in which users used an app for three months. Designers and users talked about their views. It was very interesting for the designers that could check how people accept and understand their project. After the three months usage, they applied the focus group technique. It resulted in valuable information for the marketing people to understand which language users use to talk about the app. In the end of the presentation, he highlighted the results of studying real users: Identification of usability issues, real world behaviour (way finding insights); identify new features (prioritize the actions), Marketing message, reinforce customer segmentation data. User participation results in good design. It is interesting to evaluate the idea while the idea is developed.

Jung and Mcleod from Nokia drew attention to design research for mobile gestural interaction. The presentation was brilliant. They studied how people behave in different contexts and which natural gestures could be used to interact with mobile phones. They shared some surprises happened in the course of the research in a very illustrative way. Cultural background and some “natural gestures” were not so natural when they tried to apply in mobile phones. They showed the steps of Design Research and presented Gesture Design Principles.

In the second day, the presentation called Open Air by Mark Kramer gave an idea of how Wikitude works. He demonstrated how we can add information in wikitude and the possibilities that this tool offers. I’m testing it now, if it is suitable for my research purposes I will definitely use. I still have to check in which extent I can change some settings and layout configurations.

The last presentation that I enjoyed was Mobile Widgets testing by Dan Shoshani. He showed a system Perfecto Mobile that allows you to test apps in different devices. Very interesting and it looks to be very useful. From the installation time, user experience to layout.

I also meet some people from the Mlearn, Mobile Learning and Handheld learning conferences. Good to see them and discuss new ideas!

Mobile HCI 2009

2009-09-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the pleasure to participate of the Mobile HCI Conference held in Bonn, Germany. It was my first time in Germany, so the German culture, food and architecture called my attention. The conference was held in University of Bonn, very central which make easier for participants to get together after the conference days.

In the first day, tutorials, workshops and Doctoral Consortium were the main activities. I was in the Doctor Consortium. Seven PhD students presented their work and also a panel was there: Kaisa Vaananen; Matt Jones; Mark Dunlop and Manfred Tscheligi. The projects were very diverse. They covered issues in information design, usability, healthy, social interaction, inclusiveness and emotional factors. Overall, the questions and discussions in some way fitted for all the PhD students. What is your contribution? What is theory? What is the legacy? Should we do long term or short term studies? Do you have a backup plan? What would you do if you find similar projects in the field? What is the question that you won’t be able to answer after you finish your work? It was brilliant, in my case all those issues made me think about things that I haven’t thought before. I presented the work Developing principles for outdoor mobile multimedia guides in cultural heritage settings

In the following days, papers that called my attention were the ones that emphasized way finding and multimodality in outdoor environments. I expected some works about information design and cultural heritage content.

The industrial keynote Peter Moeckel showed the methodology for developing user interfaces that they use at DeutscheTelekom. For me it was kind of Design research what they apply with their projects. I found interesting the multi cultural perspective that they have, as he mentioned that there are people from different parts of the world working together.

I selected some papers and posters to read carefully. The papers are available in ACM.

Best paper - Sweep-Shake: Finding Digital Resources in Physical Environments. Robinson, Simon; Eslambolchilar, Parisa; Jones, Matt. Sweep-Shake. Full Paper

Very well presented. I'm really curious to know why people didn't access audio and video in the same proportion as text and pictures.

Best paper - PhotoMap: Using Spontaneously taken Images of Public Maps for Pedestrian Navigation Tasks on Mobile Devices. Schöning, Johannes; Cheverst, Keith; Löchtefeld, Markus; Krüger, Antonio; Rohs, Michael.

Very exciting presentation. A new perspective to see the way finding, it is a shame that Apple didn't accept it on the store. After the presentation I was wondering of the size of the real map and the picture size that the visitor are able to take.

Text versus Speech: A Comparison of Tagging Input Modalities for Camera Phones. Cherubini, Mauro; Anguera, Xavier; Oliver, Nuria; de Oliveira, Rodrigo. Full Paper
Practices in Creating Videos with Mobile Phones. Puikkonen, Arto Mikael; Häkkilä, Jonna; Ballagas, Rafael; Mäntyjärvi, Jani. Full Paper Exploring the Use of Landmarks for Mobile Navigation Support in Natural Environments. Snowdon, Caroline; Kray, Chris. Full Paper
Supporting Map-Based Wayfinding with Tactile Cues. Pielot, Martin; Henze, Niels; Boll, Susanne. Full Paper
Expectations for User Experience in Haptic Communication with Mobile Devices. Heikkinen, Jani; Olsson, Thomas; Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Kaisa. Full Paper
Improving the Accessibility of NFC/RFID-based Mobile Interaction through Learnability and Guidance. Broll, Gregor; Keck, Susanne; Butz, Andreas. Full Paper
Extracting Landmarks near Personalized Points-of-Interest from User Generated.
Content Carter, Scott; Perttula, Arttu; Denoue, Laurent
Designing a Mobile Task Based UI for Tourists Laporte, Lieve; Eyckerman,
Peter; Zaman, Bieke
RECON: Capturing Mobile and Ubiquitous Interaction in Real Contexts. Jensen, Kasper Løvborg
The Use of Mobile Contact List applications and a Context-Oriented Framework
to Support their Design Komninos, Andreas; Liarokapis, Dimitrios
A Mobile Starfield Visualization with Space Compression Capabilities
Burigat, Stefano; Chittaro, Luca
Touch based interaction using a three display interface design Dittenberger,
Sandra; Geven, Arjan; Tscheligi, Manfred; Mayer, Markus
Eyes-Free Overviews for Mobile Map Applications McGookin, David; Brewster, StephenContextual Push-to-Talk: A New Technique for Reducing Voice Dialog Duration
Weinberg, Garrett
Improving the Recommendation of Mobile Services by Interpreting the User's
Icon Arrangement Böhmer, Matthias; Bauer, Gernot

National Gallery Multimedia Guide

2009-09-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

I went to the National Gallery and to La cage aux folles last Monday with my Greek friend. We decided to test the National Gallery application. It was probably my sixth time there and my friend visited it for the first time. As we went in the morning, it wasn't so full, then we could enjoy more the visit. Well, she got a paper plan that had a map and I started the application. We started the welcome part. She had her headphones connected as well. We started listening to it, and we didn't realized that it was an animation. Just in the middle end of it, because we're walking. Anyway, the first painting was one by Leonardo da Vince. I said that maybe I knew where it was as I went there before. I didn't. So she looked the plan and I was trying to find a map in the app. I pressed on the icon insight (that the shape looks like a box, or a map in my view, nope it wasn't a map. In this part they have themes that actually we didn't looked at. Maybe because we were visiting the gallery and not studying the paintings, or because we were together or even because of the time.

Let's go back to where I was. I touched the last icon that says info (i). This section had information about opening hours, address, admission. (It's not interesting because we were there already) In this section we have 2 buttons "map"and "website". I pressed on map. It opens the Google map, showing how to get to the Gallery. I didn't have an Internet connection, so it didn't worked out. Ah, we were using the IPod not the IPhone. The Gallery doesn't have Wi Fi, it was frustrating. Not because of this information that we didn't needed but the information that maybe we could access on the website. So, no map of the Gallery. How did we suppose to find the paintings?

She looked at the paper plan, that is available in the Gallery. We used that map. They also have in this plan the Highlight paintings. Consequently, we had to check the paintings that were in the App and find them on the plan. So that we could know where they were. Some of the paintings like the one from Renoir wasn't in the plan. It was difficult to find it. In the plan, you have the pictures of the highlighted paintings organized by colours that you can identify in the Plan map. Very easy! I was a little disappointed as I couldn't use the map on the IPod. My friend had the plan and, sometimes I had to borrow it to see where we were. I thought in take one for me when I noticed that I needed, but we were far from the entrance that time.

We found the room by Leonardo but the painting wasn't there :( . We decided to move on, the second was the Vicent Van Gogh. We checked the paper map. It was so far. So we checked againwhich paintings we had in the app that were closer to where we were.

The content was very interesting. We could look at the paintings and listen to it.I liked the explanation of The Ambassadors was great. The hidden objects, "The Pierre" (an animation) was very well made and clear. The content of Venus and Mars was very good too. We really enjoyed the one called " Nothing has changed" (So typical!!! About man and woman behaviour). I liked the Rembrandt content, called my attention. The explanation gives a reason why he painted himself in that position.

On the other hand, I missed the name of the paintings while we looked at it without touching the screen. And also, when different paintings appear in certain explanations like in the Rembrandt when a painting of Titan is in the screen. The system doesn't say that those paintings were in the Gallery. The Gallery view shows other paintings related by theme to the current one. If we knew that they where in the Gallery and where they were would be much better. We didn't explore that section because we taught that they weren't there. The one called English or French, the explanation was very attractive. We didn't notice that it was double side, and neither noticed the patterns in the gold. The App helped us to notice those details. The Arnolfini Portrait called attention by the video. They showed a nowadays couple and a photographer. It sent the message that everything in the painting was fake. I read about this in a paper before, so I knew the story of the painting. I'm not sure if it is clear for somebody that doesn't know it.

Sometimes we where distracted looking at the paintings and the screen saver went on. So we had to slide to unlock and opens the App again. I know that it is part of the configurations, but should have an advise to change it before using the application.

We also had to cross the Gallery twice, because one of the paintings was in the other side of the galleria and another was in a special exhibition. To be honest, we didn't see everything in the last paintings. Just the main explanation.

I enjoyed the experience of having a company. We had the same device, so it was easy to discuss about what we saw. It would be interesting to see how it works with 2 devices.

In general, it was a very exciting experience. We concentrated the paintings on the App, which make us to learn more about those. Much easier than go to the Gallery without knowing what to see, or try to see everything.

Westminster Abbey - tour guide

2009-08-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start with the Westminster Abbey tour guide. We're very luck no queues to go inside. The audio guide is included in the price to visit the Abbey, good alternative as visitors don't hesitate paying for it. Actually, It wasn't just an audio guide but also had pictures and short videos. The guide was very well done, overall. I started the guide and I didn't realize that had. pictures as well. So, my partner called my attention about that. The timing from the start to the centre of the Abbey was very well mesured. You start the audio guide and when the locutor stops talking you are in the place that you should be exactly for the next information. That's why I didn't look at the screen, because I was sure that I was in the right place. After the introduction you should press the number that are in display like other guides. However, it is difficult to see the numbers in the first part of the tour, because of the density of people in front of the places. I think the developers thought about that and additionally to the numbers, they gave information of directions based on where you are. You can also listen to the choir and know more about it. Additional information is available through the numbers. It gives the visit atmosphere and while you listen to the music you can appreciate the view and also see pictures of the choir on the screen of the device. Video was very well applied. You could see a panoramic view of places that you can't go inside. Pictures were also used to show graves that were in a difficult position to see (other views). The audio guide was always dialoguing with the visitor "Don't miss the opportunity to see the garden". Additionally, it made us think and make relations among the royals that are buried there.

One of the things that I remember is the oldest door in England (maybe it is not so interesting for most of people). I saw it on my way to the next part of the tour and nothing was mentioned. I thought that was just a door. And, after visiting the Chapter House, and returnning through the same path, the audio guide lead me to the door (in the end of the corredor...). Sometimes, we want to see the things in that moment, because It called the attention, and probably later we will forget about that. I don't remember if the door had a number (in the sign). Anyway, It was worth to visit! It is beautiful! The Audio guide was very good.

Tour guides review

2009-08-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

I did a great number of tours during July and I would like to share and store this information here. So, I decided that I will try to describe my experiences as a tourists and what I remember of the tours. I and my handsome husband went to Dublin, Amsterdam and France. we also did some tours in London and Brighton. We visited museums, breweries, houses of artists, Churches. So I have a lot to talk about. And, if it's work out I will continue doing some reviews for the next tours that I attend.

After the transfer

2009-06-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

Hello!!

I did my transfer from the MPhil to the PhD yesterday. Now I have an MPhil :) Well, it is a different sensation as I have to continue the work. It is not something done and ready like a master dissertation. So, a lot of work has to be done to complete the objective of the research.

I finish the first stage of the trails, thanks for everybody who participated! Now, data analysis is required in order to develop the prototyping stage. I'm going to use content analysis and also Nvivo to help me in this task. A lot has to be done! I also have an assignment about observational studies to complete and describe the field work.

I hope I can finish a paper to submit to Conahpa till the end of the week!

New ideas! new approachs with sculptures, monuments...

2009-05-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Today I presented my work for the first time in my departament. I had good questions to answer and it was a pleasure to talk about my work. I am still doing the trails study in Brighton. It is incredible how everyone is different and give me contributions that I would not possible to come with alone.

The project The Big Art was a recommendation of felows during the conference today. Very nice and interesting! Some of the videos highlighting the impotance to consider the locals opinions on the projects,

A week of events

2009-05-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday I went to UX Brighton - A journey from Ethnography Design. Overall It was interesting but I expected more from the second presentation. Ethnography was used in a different way. A kind of ethnography studies was presented. The first talk was gave by Simon Johnson that described a project for the Environment Agency. The research was very well applied. They did observation studies and interviews to get information of the potential users. As they did the study with professionals and the general public, it's interesting to notice the difference of visual patterns that those have in mind. In other words, what the professionals recommend to do was different that what the public wanted. Another thing that intrigued me and I loved was the use of post its to organize the website content, problems and solutions. Very well done! they emerged in the field to get the requirements for the Website.

Even though we have guidelines and principles to follow, It is relevant to bear in mind that each project has its particularities and field works are extremely relevant. Later... I had dinner with some friends and we continued discussing the event!

Thursday. I went to an exhibition in London - Museum and heritage show. Very exciting! All kinds of issues related to museum were there (carpets to new technologies). A lot of appealing projects in the graphic design field. Not many related to mobile guides. I found some companies that work with it. Guide by Cell (from San Francisco); OOKL (the one that is an evolution of My Art Space, Tonwelt (Germany) and ATS Heritage (UK). Some of them offer all package including the device, software and design process. The last company gave a talk about video guides. They showed some projects in outdoor and indoor settings. And also, the use of audio guides or video guides according to the project. Video guides are indicated as a complement of audio guides, show what you cannot see (old pictures, animations, process), more expensive and works batter inside. They work with Iphones as well. Actually, I saw that Iphones and windows mobile phones are one of the favorites to deliver cultural information.

Today I'm organizing the study for tomorrow. Testing the cameras, printing consent forms and questionnaires. Also I need to start writing about heritage interpretation.

In any case someone wants to participate the invitation is in this post.

Call for participants

2009-05-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

Any participants are welcome, any tourist or a resident being a tourist in their own city :)

Take it easy!

2009-04-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's about the time to write down again! Yep I took a little break to refresh my mind from my crises. And now everything is more clear, and I think Im in the right way again. Thanks God!
So, let's work. In the meanwhile I was preparing a doctor consortium (Mobile HCI), poster (London Harper Colloquium), workshop paper (CMIS workshop) and a long paper ( 4th Information Design International Conference). It was a break, but not completely :) I'm also working in my literature review.

:) I have a new haircut!

Marvellous Weekend

2009-03-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

My weekend was great! Totally different.

Saturday I went to check the Tate Modern multimedia system. Very well designed, easy to use, high quality media, and has a great feedback. I liked how the colours are used to change the visibility of the system, how games explore the theme of some paintings and also how it is easy to know about a masterpiece that you are in front of.

On the other hand, I was in a hurry because some lines of the tube were closed then I had 1 hour and a half to visit the museum. I missed some facilities in the system such as: length of the audio, video; a screen with thumbnails of the main paintings, sculptures of the museum, search (I wanted to see a work of Andy Warhol and I couldn't find walking in the gallery). A map was available, but the system doesn't provide information about each room when we select certain room on the screen. A fast visit, or a tour guides with certain themes could be interesting.

Saturday night I met interesting people in Reading. We had a little female house party. A lot of cultures, different perspectives... And we danced, belly dance, salsa and of course samba!!!

Sunday I and Vania (a researcher from Brazil that is in the University of Reading as a visitant research, explored Reading and the Landmarks - Abbey, Parks and Lakes. Beautiful city :) While we are visiting the places, we discussed about research. It was incredible good for me, so good that in the return journey to Brighton I was drawing diagrams and trying to document what we talked about. I'm very excited about my research now!!!

I found this diagram about handheld devices that illustrate a little our chat

Mind Map by Dan Porter and James Baylay

Question of fashion

2009-02-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

Hello!

It's late to post here (at least for me who always update my blog in the office hours). Anyway, today I went to a workshop Marketing in the facebook generation and some discussions are still in my mind. We're talking about the challenging to maintain a personal and a business page; how we can avoid certain offensive or inappropriate comments; and watch your behaviour in the personal digital space avoiding to affect your professional web page.

In my opinion, doesn't matter if you have two pages to up to date, you are the same person and also people don't like perfect stereotypes. I'm in for transparency! You are the same person and you behave different in different situations. If you give a lecture, you will wear different clothes that you would use if you would hanging out with some friends. You are the same but behave different according to the situation. For me It's the same with social media. We have different spaces, different rules.

Twitter

2009-02-13T05:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to a Conference Use8 very very interesting. I don't know if i liked a lot because I'm working with mobile phones and cultural heritage or It's the day! Actually the first talk (Ken Thompson CEO / Swarmteams.com"Turning Audiences into Communities") remembered me about my Design course and how nature can serve as an example for developing products and as He pointed out networks - Swarmteams.

Uau!! In this wave of Cognitive Intelligence I though of Semiotics and how everything is connected by signs and representations. The second talk was given by James Temple. He showed a lot of examples of brand and social media, including Nokia - Diaries, Nokiavine, Obama mobile. I was very excited thinking about my work and taking notes for my literature review. When I though OK the night was great I got enough information the last speaker Jamie Coomber turns up! With lots of ideas, examples and references. I was so inspired that I arrived home and started an account on Twitter! I loved it! Actually I had a little prejudice about it. People knowing about what you do should be dangerous and uncomfortable. Contrary, I found some researchers, writers that I love, and also friends that are in Brazil in that great weather saying and sending pictures of our beaches and paradises. I also started following BBC Click, every week I watch it and now I have the news in my hand, literally. I was so excited that add twitter in my skypephone, so I can blog and receive posts anytime. I'm not sure if it's is the beginner's enthusiasm...

In the final panel the future of Location-aware systems was highlighted by Simon Davis:

Social mapping
Some privacy problems
games
mobblog
better mobile devices

Well and now I'm back to my Literature Review about Tourism.

Researcher Journey

2009-02-05T07:05:00.000-08:00

My journey as a researcher is more organized now. I have a plan to cover one topic of my research every two weeks. The first one is about tourism experiences in cultural heritage sites. I did some research in this field in the beginning of last year and now I am reviewing everything and trying to figure out what to write and how to connect the topics. This week, I have been ill (actually a little better now but felling tired and lazy) so the process and the schedule is not been followed as expected. One interesting paper about behaviour is:

KIM, H., CHENG, C.-K. & O'LEARY, J. T. (2007) Understanding participation patterns and trends in tourism cultural attractions. Tourism Management, 28, 1366-1371. The study investigated the effects of socioeconomic and demographic traits of tourists on visitation patterns to 29 different types of cultural attractions using data from a national scale survey of US respondents. They confirmed that females are major participants in arts and cultural tourism, socio-economic status could be an effective predictor for participation in diverse cultural attractions and also education level is a variable that affects the participation in Festival and Musical attractions, aesthetic seeking attractions and Commercial recreation parks.

Research Design

2009-01-26T02:52:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

I just finished an assignment about Qualitative Research and HCI. One of the books that I really recommend is:

CRESWELL, J. W. (2009) Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, California, Sage Publications.

Very easy to read and brings a full description how to conduct mixed methods approach, as well as qualitative and quantitative methods.

A really interesting initiative of Mobility in Brazil - http://vivoeduca.ning.com/

New Year

2009-01-09T02:14:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone!!

New year!! New ideas!! And Focus!!!!

Today Brighton was white, it's snowing yesterday :) I have a great Christmas and I could rest a little now its time to start again! Well, I'm working on methodologies issues and qualitative research. Until the end of January I have to hand in an assignment about it. And till the end of June my Literature Review :) Positive Energy!

Some references:

Designing Qualitative Research

Carter, S.M.; Little, M. 2007 Justifying Knowledge, Justifying Method, Taking Action: Epistemologies, Methodologies, and Methods in Qualitative Research. QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH 17 (10) p1316-1328

The course that I attended was focused on the health public, so now I'm searching for references in HCI :)

See you in the next post!!

What's going on

2008-11-03T02:55:00.000-08:00

Hi :)

I long time that I haven't written a word here. Well, I finished my proposal and now I'm waiting for feedback. I went to two conferences last month - Handheld Learning and Mlearn in England. Both were great, but Mlearn was more useful for me. Now, I'm going to concentrate on reading and planning a new schedule for the next month :). A good paper of methods in mobile technology is the Emerging research methods for understanding mobile technology use by Hagen et al (2005). They pass through methods in computing science and quote a lot of examples on mobile technology environment. They also select how to mediate the data collection in three categories:

Do it: participants actively collect the data
Use it: data collection occurs automatically as a side effect of using the technology
Wear it: participants carry/wear the data collection device

It is a good paper as a reference for methodology in the field

This is a video about the evolution of mobile phones that I stole from my friend Cristiano Chaussard http://blog.inovaideia.com.br/

Presentation Mlearn 2008

2008-10-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

Mlearn2

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

SlideShare Link

Reading.... and counting the days

2008-10-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

Here I am again :) Counting the days for my Thesis Panel and for the events of next week. Researching and studying. Well, today I focused on the Literature related to Mobile Interface Design. Some interesting papers:

GRASSO, A. & ROSELLI, T. (2005) Guidelines for Designing and Developing Contents for Mobile Learning. Proceedings of the IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education. IEEE Computer Society. Highlights which issues are relevant to develop content for Art courses on Mobile devices.

PAREDES, R., G. J. , OGATA, H., YANO, Y. & MARTIN, G. A. S. (2005) A Multi-Model Approach for Supporting the Personalization of Ubiquitous Learning Applications. Proceedings of the IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education. IEEE Computer Society. They described the implementation of a centralized system with multi modal based approach to support the personalization of such application.

JOSEPH, S. & UTHER, M. (2006) Mobile Language Learning with Multimedia and Multi-modal Interfaces. Proceedings of the Fourth IEEE International Workshop on Wireless, Mobile and Ubiquitous Technology in Education. IEEE Computer Society. They show a very interesting audio and image study and pointed out the value of incorporating multimedia elements into mobile learning applications.

PAOLINI, P., GARZOTTO, F. & COLAZZO, S. (2005 ) Let's go mobile! Design issues in multichannel "accessible" applications for cultural heritage. Museums and the Web 2005. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Archives & Museum Informatics. They introduce the concept of multi-channel Web applications and explore, from a design perspective, the concept of interoperability. Also, they show basic concepts related to mobile phones (hardware, communication features, software capabilities).

I also had a look to other papers but I will include in the next post (as I haven't finish yet :)

Irland

2008-09-23T02:06:00.000-07:00

There is hope!

Well, I did a lot of stuff in the past week. Among them I went to Irland and I was surprised and very excited about the culture and different style to live. They are fantastic! Happy people! And what is that pub!! (Temple Bar) incredible! I loved it! After I will continue ( I have to work now). So, I went with brazilian friends and we had a great time. The Best thing was the Dublinia and the Viking World very well set up! A lot of fun as you could wear and interact with objects and garments of that time. I agree with Brown and Chalmer (2003) when they say that the most of what is enjoyable about leisure is that it provides an opportunity to spend time with friends or family. :)

what's going on

2008-09-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Today, I was reading the InfoDesign Journal edited by Peter J. Boggards and I saw a lot of interesting papers and resources for my work. Consequently, I haven't written so much and overwhelmed with a lot of possibilities that are available with mobile phones. The Mobile HCI papers are available at ACM. Taking advantage of the up to date day I did my

Qrcode, just for testing.

Readings

2008-09-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

Hello!

In the last days I'm pretty concern about my research, thinking about it in all the places. However, yesterday I was forced to change the subject to Online Exhibition. I don't know if I wrote here that I'm doing a placement as a research assistant. It is great, as I can move my thoughts and have another huge spectrum of other subject. So, the last papers that I read about it was:

Personalization and the Web from a Museum Perspective by Bowen, Jonathan P. & Filippini-Fantoni, Silvia. They describe in a very easy way a lot of aspects and terms of personalization, adaptivity, adaptability. Beyond show a lot of examples of Online Exhibitions.

Visiting the Virtual Museum Some of the most dynamic museum exhibitions are on the Web by
McMillan, S. The author described the development and concepts of some Online Exhibitions sob point of view of the interface design. "Learning by doing is what makes interactive effective".

The last one was nice to find. I went to Saint Peter's Library which contains the main resources for Design students. And the journal of this paper is amazing - Communication Arts - full of case studies.

About my research, now I am reading some papers again and making a text.
:)

A tour guide experience

2008-08-26T05:08:00.000-07:00

Hi there!!!

I went to Scotland this weekend, I visited Edinburgh and Glasgow. It was a nice trip otherwise very very tiring. It was the first time that I took a long tour guide in my life (normally I just take the city tour and visit the city by myself), 11 hours to arrive by bus, everything extremely fast and people snoring during the journey! Apart of those little and annoying things It was a great experience. We left Brighton Friday night and arrived in Edinburgh in the morning. A very good Scotch guide showed as all the city and said some historical curiosities about the place. So beautiful! We took the last days of the festival, so the city was full of "peculiar"people. They are so creative to hand in papers on the streets ( they sing, make choreographs ... everything to call attention). The castle was very impress, but guess what! We didn't have time to visit! That's all about tour guides! Now I have to see my pictures again to remember what I saw and try to remember of what the guide said. In the follow day, I changed the plans and I skipped of the pre determined tour. Everybody went to Highlands and I decided to stay in Glasgow and enjoy the city. I'm so proud that I did this. The guide said that go to Scotland and don't see the Highlands is the same to go to London and don't see the Big Ban. Ok! I was tempted to go but I saw the schedule - 5 Castles, Willian Wallace Monument (I read a paper about this - Audiovisual Technologies in tourism) and more things that I don't record now. And I started to considerate the "bubble destination" and all the things related to see the city as a tourist (stay inside the bus all the time, guides talking without stopping and "5 min of break to take pictures") What can I get of that? Beyond a very tiring journey and overwhelmed information? So, I decided to stay in the city. It was the best choice in my point of view! I had a book guide and I followed the things that I was interested. First of all, I took a bus to arrive at the town and see how is the pace of life there. I saw a lot of Mackintosh (The Glasgow School of Art ) works and I had a tea at the original Willow Tea Rooms - a lecture about Art Nouveau! Everything is keeping the same since 1900, even the uniforms of waiters. Glasgow is lovely, full of history! I went to the oldest house (with the ancient furniture inside), Cathedral and St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art that I loved it - they have a gallery of Religious Art that show the rituals of which step of the life in different religious (birth, teenage, weddings...). The follow day was as usual a short city tour around Glasgow inside the bus (because we didn't have time even for taking pictures at the main attractions) and a long journey back to Brighton.
The bus tours had competent and knowledge guides and I could concentrate more (listen) during the Glasgow tour, I agree with Tove Oliver that if we know what we're going to see we can record more information.

It was a great weekend!

New Interfaces

2008-08-18T05:54:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Sometimes I am just worried to make my research more contemporaneous and attractive for people in the field. I am in my break now and just looking for information design news and I found 10 Futuristic User Interfaces including the future of search mobile . Very very interesting!!! So, the thing is that does not matter the technology but how we can manage the content and present to users.

I am reading a lot about tourism and tourists experience during tour guides and I found that most of the tourists they learn when they know the route, they know what they are going to visit (Tove Oliver). Then, this information is changing the way that I am conducting my work now. Another thing is that looking at history of tour guides and guide books I realized that nothing changed related to behaviours of tourists- sightseeing, landscapes and souvenirs (Tony Perrottet, 2000). So, the technology affect the presentation of content, but I am not sure if I agree with MacLuhan about the changing of behaviour as a effect of technology.

Tourism and cultural routes

2008-07-31T06:11:00.000-07:00

Hello!!

I am studying about cultural guides and I found a lot of different terms and things that I can use in my project. One of the papers that described them is:

Journeys of the Imagination? The Cultural route revealed by Tove Oliver
He described terms as “a destination bubble””conveying a sense of isolation rather than involvement” (p.319) and studied about tourists images of the cities and the role that the organized tours play in informal learning. He found that tourists’ “images changed in magnitude as the tour had enforced already well defined images” (p. 319). He also conclude that the “potential for tour members to interact with host communities lies not only with the tourists themselves, but also with destination image intermediaries and tourism police makers”(p. 319).

A lot to do

2008-07-23T04:13:00.000-07:00

Today I realised that I have more less 2 months before my thesis outline. It is incredible how the time flies here and I am starting to be desperate! A lot to research in the field of tourism, museology, design, mobile learning, mobile technology, usability and so on. Well, but the thing is that I have to organize what to do first. I am reading some books of the tourism field such as:

URRY, J; SHELLER, M. Tourism Mobilities: places to play, places in play. London: Routledge, 2004.

CROUCH, D. et al . The Media & Tourist Imagination - Converging Cultures. London: Routledge, 2005.

Last Tuesday

2008-07-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

I went to RIBA and I did a tour of the Library. The deputy librarian Jane Oldfield showed me how the books are stored and the specific conditions that are necessary to conserve them. I looked at the place where they keep the photos related to our project. We are able to use those images, because the RIBA holds the copyright. Robert Elwall is the Photo Curator.

I also had the opportunity to talk with Dr Paul Snell (Education Curator) and Jane about RIBA Online Exhibition on Italian architect Andrea Palladio (500th anniversary). After that, we went to the Bene/CELTD education room http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Educationprogrammes/CETLD%20Bene%20Education%20Room%20booking.aspx where they give some workshops for students, architects and other groups and it is possible to have video conferences.
In the afternoon we went to V&A and I saw the drawings of 2 Willow Road and had an explanation about the house from Catherine Williamson, the RIBA/V&A education officer. Later on, we visited the archives of RIBA inside the V&A building. Susan Pugh, the RIBA archivist responsible for this archive at V&A told us that she is using the RIBA architecture.com template for her “Albertopolis” online exhibition, but is not very flexible because of the template’s limitations. Her online exhibition is about the buildings in the Exhibition Road area like the V&A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal Albert Hall.

Mobile and propper functions

2008-07-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

Today is a sunny day in Brighton!!! And I'm here with references from tourism, cultural heritage and mobile phones and usability field. The paper of the day was one indicated for my colleague Tim de Jong : What are Location's "File"and "Edit"Menus? by Andrew Fano. I liked the way they relate the tasks of mobile phones with the locations, and also, which kind of tasks users will need during certain actions. Very useful!!!!

Now, I'm gonna take a look at some tourism books and try to find out more about the history of tourist guides.

I'm back

2008-07-07T05:18:00.000-07:00

Well, well

I returned from my holidays last week :) I went to Spain and Italy and I could have a taste of travelling again. My husband came from Brazil and I could enjoy his company for almost one month - wonderful.

During the journey I could test some mobile equipments as audio guides and video guides, some give emphasis to history and point of view of main researchers of the field (boring ones), other to details of masterpieces (very interesting ones), and also I have tried a video guide at Coliseum the videos were very well done but so long that distracted us from the surrounding. It was a sunny day, then I had to find a shadow and sit to see the screen. Moreover, you could choose to follow the linear tour or to make your tour (seeing what you want). I chose the first just to see how it works and I had to give up. So complicated it was! It was difficult to localize myself on the system and I had to consult the map every time (the physical and the digital one). Other comments about it http://mam5099.blogspot.com/2008/06/coliseum-video-guide-vs-audio-guide.html

I think It was a great experience as a researcher, but not as a tourist.

Ps. Just to let you know I am a member of Interactive Technologies Research Group - http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/itrg-blog/ We have a blog now :)

What's going on?

2008-05-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hey!

I'm very keen on writing today :) I don't know why but I think it's a good beginning to keep my blog up to date. So, Last week I went to a seminar about Online Exhibitions - Janet Mejia. It was very nice! She showed us her research about archives and collections. This project has 4 partners such as: University of Brighton, Royal College of Art, Riba and V&A. I'm going to participate in this project after June :) I'm pretty sure that will be a good experience!

Anyway, last week I made my first field research during the Fringe Festival - Brighton Rock Tour and St. Nicholas Church tour. It was very interesting to notice that the majority of people are from Brighton. The tours were very nice with loads of information and very friendly people. And More, we had a great weather. Now, I had a great amount of data, but I'm still analyzing and trying to organize them. The next tour will be Historical Central Brighton Tour as well.

So, today I had great meetings with Eun Joo, who is doing her PhD here in Brighton and another with the Research group. My meetings with Eun Joo are a good opportunity to know more about Marketing and discuss our research.

At the moment, I'm reading some papers and analyzing them :)
That's it :)

Beautiful Day!

2008-05-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful day in Brighton!! Lovely!! I'm planning my first fieldwork and I hope everything will be all right.

I read an article very interesting today Design: Cultural Probes by Bill, Gaver; Tony, Dunne;
Elena, Pacenti. It is an approach to understand and be familiar with the research field. "Our task was to better understand their particularities". Very useful for my research.

Tomorrow will be a busy day with a seminar and meetings, even though I will try to post again.

London Hopper Colloquium

2008-05-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Hello!

My Mobile Learning review was published, if you want to take a look clique here.

So, yesterday I went to London Hopper Colloquium for women that was an event sponsored by Queen Mary University of London, Women CL, The British Computer Society and Google. It was very nice, but very specific to the field of Computer Science. I presented my poster (It was a nightmare to print it) and could know what is going on among women and computing. For me the most important part of the day was the panel session, when the speakers answered questions of the audience. They talked about their career and gave some tips to "survive"in a field that is populated by men. It was the first time that I went to a women conference, so that it was funny to notice that many worries we have in the everyday situations are very normal. Worries about family and motherhood , how to conciliate career and private life and so on. After the colloquium, I went with 2 other research student - Fernanda Li Minku and Yang Li to go sightseeing London. They are from University of Birmingham. We had a great time.

A long time

2008-04-24T05:20:00.000-07:00

A lot happened during the last two weeks!!! So, it will be difficult to explain everything in a complete way :) I went to Mobile learning conference in Portugal - Amazing!! - I knew a great number of people from the field and had feedback of my research. Now I think my research is going on and I'm really enjoying it!! A review about the Conference will be published by me on the http://digitalheritage.wordpress.com/, so you can check how was the conference in an academy's point of view. Now I'm working in my assignment, a paper and in my research methods. Follow some books about research and methodology:

Social Research Methods (Paperback) by Alan Bryman - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Research-Methods-Alan-Bryman/dp/0199264465

How to Research (Paperback) by Lorraine Blaxter http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Research-Lorraine-Blaxter/dp/033521746X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209040419&sr=1-1

Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination (Published in association with The Open University) (Paperback) by Christopher Hart http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doing-Literature-Review-Imagination-association/dp/0761959750/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209040472&sr=1-1

Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-researchers (Paperback) by Colin Robson http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-World-Research-Scientists-Practitioner-researchers/dp/0631213058/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209040511&sr=1-1

That's it for today :)

Seminars

2008-04-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Last week, I went to 2 seminars that were about Second Life and Dyslexia. The first one highlighted collaborative tasks in the virtual world and the second pointed out how people with dyslexia interact with interfaces using eye-tracking.

The design of effective web navigation structures for individuals with dyslexia: what we can learn from eye tracking.
Areej Al-Wabil Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design, City University

'Encouraging and Directing User Contributions For Real World Museums in Second Life. 'Lars Wieneke'

So, a very good paper of Guides and Games - Adaptation of Storytelling to Mobile Entertainment Service for Site-Specific Cultural and Historical Tour - HyunJeong Kim and John Schliesser. A very well written State of Art in the area of mobile guides and a proposal of mobile guide that has two modes of use a tour and game.

Papers of the week

2008-04-06T03:54:00.000-07:00

Well, well. It's snowing!!!!!!!!

This week I attended a module about Research, although the texts were about Mobile TV. Very interesting for my research. In general, people have an idea that mobile TV isn't for learning content only for Entertainment (games, sports and adult content). Mobile TV is a way to "kill the time". So, users face this new media as a way to waste time. Anyway, I think to insert educational content on mobile is a question of time, maybe we have to develop softwares that will attend the necessities of the learner. If they don't like to watch educational content we can provide the podcast and test new ways to turn out to be users interested on video. How? Well, a lot of research have been doing in this field, including mine :)

Benford, S., D. Rowland, M. Flintham, A. Drozd, R. Hull, J. Reid, J. Morrison & K. Facer. (2005) Life on the edge: supporting collaboration in location-based experiences. CHI 2005 (April 2-7, Portland, Oregon, USA). This paper describes a location-based game in a school. Very interesting :).

Carlsson, Christer & Pirkko Walden. 2007. Mobile TV: to live or die by content. In Proceedings of 4th ICSS, pp. 1 –9. This describes the last surveys in the field and highlight where and who are using mobile phones.

O’Hara, Kenton, April Slayden Mitchell & Alex Vorbau. (2007). Consuming Video on Mobile Devices. In Proceedings of CHI 2007, pp. 857 – 866. Very well-written. Focus on the behaviour of users related to video on mobile devices.

See you soon :)

Mobile Tv and Mobile Guides

2008-03-28T04:48:00.000-07:00

I've been reading about mobile TV, adaptive guides and mobile guides in general. As I have a lot of references to describe, I will type the paper title and a brief explanation of each one. So, Let's begin!

Prospectus of mobile TV: Another bubble or killer application? Shin, Dong Hee - This paper is very well-written and organized. For me it was important because He describes the main research questions that will guide the text - How does DMB (Digital multimedia broadcasting) trigger a change in policy market industry structure? What are the driving forces of the rapid DMB development in Korea? Does DMB haul new generation network environment by disrupting the current network environment? Moreover, this paper explain main technical terms in the field and illustrate the facts that are influencing Korea's DMB development such as: Consumer behaviour, hurry up culture, education focus, pervasive infrastructure, population density, convenience, subsidies, aggressive IT planning and free incoming calls. He employs three subsystems to investigate the integration of technology , processes, people and organizational structure- Social (market, customer and Industry); Technical (infrastructure, equipment, application and service); Environment (regulation, police and society). Anyway, he finishes saying that we need more content providers. Overall, this paper help me to understand main and current concepts as Mobile TV= multimedia broadcasting and It is so well-written that is a good model to follow.
Creating the Adaptive Interface - Good examples how to employ Adaptive Systems.
Context-based design of mobile applications for museums: a survey of existing practices. Dimitris Raptis, Nikolaos K. Tselios, Nikolaos M. Avouris. This paper includes a review of mobile applications used in museum environments. They described different types of technologies that can be used in exhibitions (RFID, IRDA, Bluetooh, Wireless) and how context influences interaction. As context they defined: Domain context(Visit, tasks); Physical context(Location, mobility and population); System context (devices and applications); Infrastructure context (information accuracy due to connectivity). It is a very important paper since describes mobile guides according the last 4 subdivisions of context.
Eurescom MUST project Multimodal, multilingual information services for small mobile terminals. Malek Boualem (1), Luis Almeida (2), Ingunn Amdal (3), Nuno Beires (2), Lou Boves (4), Els den Os (5), Pascal Filoche (1), Rui Gomes (2), Jan Eikeset Knudsen (3), Knut Kvale (3), John Rugelbak (3), Claude Tallec (1), Narada Warakagoda (3), (1) France Telecom R&D, 2, avenue Pierre Marzin - 22307 Lannion - France. Allow users to input information through speech and pen and text graphics and speech at the output side.They select one Point of Interest and surround map appear on the screen. Users can ask questions and answers appear on the screen – icons of restaurants... If users ask something that the system doesn’t have on the database, another application is turned on that searches the Web for the answer.
TGH: a case study of designing natural interaction for mobile guide systems.
Weining, Yue; Shu, Mu; Heng, Wang; Guoping, Wang. Allow users to visit certain places – Peking University through a map and speech. Depending on the time of the day the system shows what users may do – restaurants or check landscapes. Main technologies: Multimodal technologies Speech and pen VOD (video on demand), Adaptive – map navigation, orientation of the user interface, route query.
iCITY – an adaptive social mobile guide for cultural events. Francesca Carmagnola1, Federica Cena1, Luca Console1, Omar Cortassa1,2, Cristina Gena1, Anna Goy1, Mario Parena1, Ilaria Torre1, Andrea Toso2, Fabiana Vernero2, Agnese Vellar1, 1. Department of Computer Science - University of Turin, Corso Svizzera 185, Turin, Italy. A mobile adaptive guide that provides personalized location-based tourism information about the city of Turin. Collaborative – peer productionAdaptation- devices (web access via desktop, PDA, smartphone); user(personalized interaction) and to the context of interaction (user-location). Technologies - RSS format, Semantic Web and Web2.
Imogl : Take Control over a Context-Aware Electronic Mobile Guide for Museums. Luyten, K. and Coninx, K. Adaptive guide based on context-sensitive interfaces. The information that is shown in the user interface can be obtained in two different ways: on the one hand it can be stored on the mobile guide, on the other hand it can be queried from artifacts that are in the direct surroundings of the mobile guide through wireless communication. Main possibilities: Route annotation, Map overview, Allows the user to load custom maps, Map is zoomed out to give a clear overview. Main technologies: GPS, Bluetooh, Wireless communication.
Museums outside walls: Mobile media and the Museum in the Everyday. Konstantinos Arvanitis. This is one of the most important papers related to my research. Is is about everyday experiences with "museums out side walls". He tries to highlight the meaning of everyday archaeological monuments. His field research was based on Greece where He asked to 10 young residents of the city to use their own camera phones to capture and communicate through MMS the way they perceive three monuments that are part of the city's urban landscape. It was applied some evaluation methods as focus group and semi-structured interview. Additionally, the author highlights that experiences with mobile technology and cultural heritage don't take full advantage of the opportunities that mobile media may offer to museums. And I particularly liked this statement "Museums might be able to access the fabric of the daily existence that makes people who they are, how they see and understand the world around them".

Overall, I noticed the key technologies are image and speech recognition systems, GPS, multimodal technologies, collaborative systems, Adaptive systems, artificial intelligence algorithms, Semantic Web, Web2. Beyond that the main possibilities are Audio guides, interactive maps, photos, written information, visit scheduling according to the time of day, person’s location, answers based on databases and Web, orientation of the user interface, creation of the own trail.

That's it :)

Easter

2008-03-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!! I'm trying to concentrate myself on studies, actually I've just started to read and I remembered what I did yesterday :) I went to the National Gallery in London. It was great!!!! I could see my favorites paintings such as: The Rokeby Venus, The Arnolfini Portrait, The Supper at Emaus. Beyond I saw Leonard da Vinci, Botticelli, Bronzino... so many famous master pieces that I can't describe. However, I was really impressed by Van Gogh. I could see the marks of paintbrush and the printed energy on the painting (A Wheatfield, with Cypresses). Fantastic!!!! I don't know why but I was really moved by it. I spent part of the day inside the National Gallery and Portrait Gallery, and the other part walking along London - Parliament, London Eye, Westminster Abadia and St. James Park. Well, in the last one I took a lot of melancholic pictures. Anyway, I had a great and fantastic time yesterday. When I arrived in Brighton I saw all the cars covered with ice, yeah We have snow here and I missed! That's OK :) Maybe next year I will be able to see snow here :)

Location based services

2008-03-16T06:10:00.000-07:00

In the last few days, I have been reading a lot about GPS systems. New discoveries were showed on the BBC programme - Click. The one that caught my attention was about content. We have the technology but there is a lack of content. Then, enterprises and developers have focused on user generate content and social network. For them, It is essential not only to know where you are with GPS devices but also include other types of information. On the other hand, it is a dangerous field since Ad enterprises would know where consumers are and bother them with advertisements. Another example released on the TV programme was one that MIT predicted 4 years ago about User-Centered Location Awareness.-With GPS system parents are able to check youngsters location through mobile phones. So, I think it is worthy to study in a different and novel project, even if it is impossible to develop now.

That is why research exists, to predict what will happen and what should add knowledge to the field. Besides that, novel experiences with mobile technology and location based services have been employed on Pdas, for instance mscapers and createascape. Microsoft windows mobile have already allowed to seek restaurants, theatres around cities on the mobile phone.

Almost all these initiatives use cross-platform - PC and mobile phone or Pdas to insert information or to check data.

And today, Yahoo is starting to use key elements of next generation net technology known as the "semantic web". It means that they will recognize (or try to) what user expect to search more efficiently.

That is it for today ;)

Conceptual maps

2008-03-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

I am trying to do a conceptual map of my area. Main authors, conferences and so on. As I am using delicious to record my websites I think it's quite useful to leave this link here.
I have read a lot of different issues:

User-centered Location Awareness - MIT projects. They show diferent kind of projects with GIS technology;
Mobile Communication in Everyday Life: Ethnographic Views, Observations and Reflections - I have only one chapter

Everything connected, however different. Well, I should return to work and continue my endless map :)

Monday - I am very excited to work today!!!

2008-03-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I went to a conference Anytime, Anywhere about mobile technology. It was quite useful and I now I realized that I want to work in the Market too. Yes, I don't know what happened!! I would like to be a teacher, professor in my area and just it. On the other hand, I love to work and develop graphic interfaces, icons and information architecture. All those things are related to information design I love to study and work with.

Returning to the conference - The first Speaker was James Chaytor Sprung Studios and he presented "Designing the interface for Mobile Phones". He showed a lot of examples that his company has been developing - Icons of Orange mobiles phones, Gadgets (the ones that we have on the Windows Vista), 3.uk. He highlighted the importance to design icons easy to use. Moreover, he talked about their methodology - focus groups: users, experts and no experts. They check: how do they use information? Which are the preferences of users? What is the concept? Then, they design the concept and test the system with low fidelity design. After that, they solve mistakes before the tests with high fidelity prototype. It is important to say that usability specialist give more contribution - understanding - how user use the program. So, designers and programmers use direct (users) and indirect (experts) information.

The second speaker David Tisserand France TelecomInside Orange labs – The User-centered process in the launch of new products and services underlined usability issues (effectiviness, efficiency, satisfaction) and the value to envolve users in step of system development. He quoted some methodologies they use: heuristic analysis, task analysis, observational test. The methodology part is one of my concerns of my PHD project that is why I mentioned it. The presenter repeated the same statement all the time "First impression is very important". As almost all the audience come from usability background this conference didn't bring new approaches.

Ron Bird -Designing Interaction for Mobile Phones showed how users can interact with scroll wheel on mobile phones.

The last one was Stephen O’Connor IDEOCreating Valuable Mobile Experiences. He has worked with mobile phones for 8 years. Below some points he presented:

We should concentrate in human behaviour for designing products and services;

Users question themselves - What is it? Why do I need it? How does it work?

Main factors of Interaction design - desirability, feasibility, viability;

Framework for consumers - How do users behave?

What is the difference of mobile?
- Social (communication) experience

Definitely, the last lecture was the best :)

Music :)

2008-03-09T07:34:00.000-07:00

I was feeling very very bad today in the morning. But you know, I have to accept the life as it is. I am here to study and nothing more. I knew that would be difficult to live in other country, but I didn't realise how hard is to be here without friends, family and husband. The last one is the most complicated. I was used to live with someone and to share everything - desserts, bed, money, bad and good feelings - and with who I can count on? It is not the same to talk to somebody that you have just known!! I think only my husband can put up with me :) even I have problems to tolerate myself. I have to be strong enough to handle with this. Well, well this blog was about references and now it appears as a teen diary.

The title is "music" because I am trying to cheer me up listening brazilian music. Some musics as "Por você" Barão vermelho e some "forró" work well for depression :) Now I had to turn off the music because is very complicated to listen portuguese and write English in the same time. Boring person!!

Maybe I will continue to write more here today. :) The good thing is that almost nobody has this webpage then I don't have to be concern of what I am writing.

Reading :)

2008-03-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here I am again :)

A long time that I don't post here. Why? Well I haven't had many things to tell. And more I think so much to write and express my ideas that I don't want to waste a long time thinking and writing. I have conscious that it is a very important practice :) Then, let me say what I read today. I am trying to read many articles and papers I can about mobile learning. The last one was Mobile Learning Reviewed. It is a guide that shows some relevant points in this field such as:

Which devices should de considered as platform for mobile learning?
Who's likely to use mobile learning?
Which types of design approach can work in mobile learning?
Which types of content are best suited to mobile learning?
What are the criteria for effective mobile learning?

It is a good text for designers read because it points out usable topics.

That is it for today. :)

London London

2008-02-29T03:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to London with my brazilian friend. It was nice :) During the day we travel by bus (almost 2 hours and a half) to London. Seats were comfortable but the bus shaked a lot and was so hot then I and She became sick!! Very very sick!!!! Low blood pressure! We visit the Buckingham Palace e took a lot of pictures. And we washed our hands with Body Shop Moisturisers.

Our objective was to attend a lecturer at 01zero-one "The rise of the Post Network Brandcasters". It was so good to see how business people think about brands. Now the aim is the content and how is possible to draw consumers using intelligent contents. The speakers were Richard Adams, Joanna Lyall and Robin Jaffray. Bellow some main points:

Content is getting richer and agencies are waking up to change it.
To draw users is essential to think about time, experience, information and attention.
Successfull advertisements are adaptative to change, benefit to consumers, show content on-line, tell a story.
Examples - Ford Bite / Motherhood (contents advertises the brand)/ audi channel
It is broadcasting 3.500 comercials a year but people can engage in only 3 of them.
Other forms of spam - Ad-voidance
55% using blogs
63%youtube
43%podcasts
51%webfeeds
41%social networks
The application Economy - 3 main points: usefulness, interestingness and ubiquity.
Usefulness - people understand why it is useful, worth it. Examples - Frozen Grand central, Lucky Star by Mercedes
Interestingness - consumers request information
Ubiquity - create a storyline for the brand. - mobile content.

In the end, I thought - oh it is not so new! But now people are talking about content and consumers and it is amazing for my field!!!! :)

One of those days

2008-02-27T05:29:00.000-08:00

The title says everything that I want to say today. I do not know what happend in my mind :) I had a supervisory meenting in the morning It was great, but now I am a little bit lost - papers to write, many others to read, tasks :) In other words, today is that day to go to the pier and see the sunset. I am going to have english class in the whole afternoon and I cannot get rid of this. I am felling better in relation to talk in english, not so confident but now I can speak. Tomorrow, I will go to London with Renata to attend a workshop, It will be nice :). Many people say writting is a good exercise to fresh minds. I am not sure about that. How can I write things that are very personal in a blog? Sometimes I want to say what is not acceptable to say in public spots. Ok then, I am going to stop complaining and return to work.

Yesterday, I took some
books about evaluation issues from the library. Many of them are well-known:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ukIaAAAACAAJ&dq=Interaction+design
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DoQYtvTtS8AC&q=designing+user+interface&dq=designing+user+interface&pgis=1
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=H-ZQAAAAMAAJ&q=the+elements+of+user+interface+design&dq=the+elements+of+user+interface+design&pgis=1

All them I have already known even though they are useful.

Maps and Guidebooks

2008-02-22T04:38:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody :)

In the last two days I haven't written many things but I read. My supervisors indicated for me a very good article about technologies and tourist guides: Of maps and guidebooks: designing geographical technologies by Barry Brown & Mark Perry -Department of Computer Science, University of Glasgow & DISC, Brunel University. In general the paper describes some definitions about space and place and how these terms and their significance interfere in tourist guides. For me it was a great piece of information because they show aspects of physical maps and guidebooks related to users. In the case of maps (spatial information), they are not very good explaining the feel of experience area (palcial information):

... maps are hard to use, particularly if you do not know a city.

So staff (tourist information) would combine a map with actually
"showing" in physical space where the destination was and how to
get there: "it's behind us on Argyle street". (Brown and Perry 2001:250).

Then, designers should think more about "specific aspects of places that make them interesting and distinct"and not only show the co-ordinates. More comparison between features of places that users know and other they want to know. As we use in development of conceptual maps - designers of contents may use familiar information to explain new concepts for users.

In the case of guidebooks, authors say that Glasgow guidebooks bring more the standardised than the specific information, so local details become essential to enjoy and plan the visit.

They show some examples of geographical systems which display maps and conclude that these systems have a lack of support user's behaviour. They highlight the importance to put together spatial information and placial information to guide activity.

Good contribution to my project :)

2008-02-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

Today was a busy day! Classes and more classes :) That is weird how I am feel so uncomfortable in classes. Sometimes I can not speak !! It is very strange for someone who gave classes in Brazil! Now I am afraid to talk in public. And worst, while I am talking I heard my own voice and see how I need to improve :).
Ok, but It is time to can back to the work.

Yesterday, I read a paper intitulated Design issues in a semiotic description of user responses to three interfaces. There is a good description of authors and fields where computing semiotic can be found. Moreover, they show how semiotic approaches might help as a framework to evaluate interfaces. As in my master dissertation, they also use heuristics guidelines to evaluate interfaces. But, diferently of my work (that results in a semiotioc model to analyse interfaces) they developed 4 guidelines based on Semiotic isssues to evaluate interfaces: navigation, iconic representation, aesthetics and world of reference.

Well, tomorrow I should start my paper to send to HCI conference. I hope!

Research about evaluation of interfaces

2008-02-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

I read 2 papers related to evaluation of museums today. One of them shows examples of how RFID can be used to enhance visitors'museum experience. In my opinion, this paper will help me to justify some aspects that I perceived while I was doing the evaluation of Brighton Fishing Museum system such as: bookmarking, visitors'own social and educational expectations, learning experience, how long the interaction on the screen should take, metaphors, how users handle with RFID (cards).

The other one explains some requirements for a children multimedia museum environment. There is a comentary about the importance of use metaphors in this type of systems since children might learning more playing a role as explorers.

This week am going to attend classes everyday. I hope I could read more and start to write the next paper about the evaluation of Brighton Fishing Museum system .

17-02-2008

2008-02-17T03:41:00.000-08:00

Hi,

The porpose of this blog is record my reading and my experiences in my PHD in Interactive Tecnologies and mobile learning. I live in Brighton-UK and today we have a good weather (sunshine) to stay all day on the computer :) and more else is Sunday :)

I'm envolved in other projects related to cultural heritage, then some of the contents will be linked to it.

It is time!!!

mobile guide in context

1º Encontro sobre Tecnologias e Políticas Públicas para Televisão Digital

6. Ciclo de Estudos em Design - Design para mídia móveis

Seminário Internacional m-Todos: tendências e oportunidades da mobilidade digital

Call for participants

Prototype is done! Recruiting participants

Requirements for mobile cultural guides

Play and tour audio guide (lite)

Call for participants

Over the Air 2009

Mobile HCI 2009

National Gallery Multimedia Guide

Westminster Abbey - tour guide

Tour guides review

After the transfer

New ideas! new approachs with sculptures, monuments...

A week of events

Call for participants

Take it easy!

Marvellous Weekend

Question of fashion

Twitter

Researcher Journey

Research Design

New Year

What's going on

Presentation Mlearn 2008

Reading.... and counting the days

Irland

what's going on

Readings

A tour guide experience

New Interfaces

Tourism and cultural routes

A lot to do

Last Tuesday

Mobile and propper functions

I'm back

What's going on?

Beautiful Day!

London Hopper Colloquium

A long time

Seminars

Papers of the week

Mobile Tv and Mobile Guides

Easter

Location based services

Conceptual maps

Monday - I am very excited to work today!!!

Music :)

Reading :)

London London

One of those days

Maps and Guidebooks

More articles

Research about evaluation of interfaces

17-02-2008