Workshops - Mobile HCI 2002

Workshop 1: Mobile Tourism Support Systems

17 September 2002, C.N.R. Research Area of Pisa, Pisa, in conjunction with Mobile HCI '02

Room number 27, Building A

This workshop aims to bring together R&D projects that develop and evaluate tourism support systems for use on mobile devices. The focus on this specific application domain and user group should allow us to become more concrete about usability issues. Reviewed papers will be presented at the workshop and the time schedule will allow for discussion among participants.

Today's nomadic users expect to get access to the services and information from various devices, whenever and wherever they need it. They often try to combine several purposes of travelling, such as business and edutainment. They may want to tailor their visit and to dynamically change their itinerary based upon their current context, so the usefulness of pre-planned intentions may be limited.

Mobile terminals, such as mobile phones or PDAs, open up new and enhanced ways to support tourists while on tour. Mobile devices, with an internal or external positioning system, coupled to back-end information services about users and the locations, are currently being investigated as a means to deliver location-based and personalized tourism information to tourists. While the new technologies promise benefits and added values, they also raise challenges concerning usability, accessibility and trustworthiness.

This workshop aims at bringing together experts form R&D projects that develop systems to support travelling people, which are accessible on mobile devices. Aspects of use and usability ought to be addressed explicitly, reports of empirical studies are especially welcome.

Topics relevant for this workshop are, for instance:

on-tour support for travellers
access to tourist support, e-content and e-business via mobile devices
facilitate access to heterogeneous, distributed services
location-awareness and personalization
context-awareness, considering a wider range of travelling conditions
social awareness
user evaluation of tourist support systems
novel infrastructures, such as agent based technology
fault tolerance, trustworthiness, and security
support all phases of travelling, including preparation and post-tour activities
roaming between devices

Further details on Workshop 1 at: http://fit-bscw.gmd.de/pub/bscw.cgi/d33335856-2/*/*/mTourismHCI-home.html. Registration to the workshop is required, for details and fee see http://giove.cnuce.cnr.it/mobilehci02.html.

Program Committee of Workshop 1:

1. Barbara Schmidt-Belz, Fraunhofer FIT, Germany

2. Keith Cheverst, Lancaster University, UK

3. Elke-Maria Melchior, ACIT, Germany

4. Stefan Poslad, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Workshop 3: Main Issues in Designing Interactive Mobile Services

17 September 2002, CNR Research Area of Pisa, Pisa, in conjunction with Mobile HCI '02

Room number 28, Building A

The new 3G communications technology providing mobile access to context-dependent services will strongly enhance and extend communication possibilities in mobility. Therefore, new design approaches, HF studies, behavioural theories and evaluation techniques must arise in order to be able to design interactive mobile artefacts that provide the user with a positive experience. The workshop intends to explore and analyse the main aspects in the design of scenarios of context dependent services for the incoming 3G mobile communication technologies. It is designed as a one-day practical activity with relevant theoretical discussion, ending with a poster design session.

Goals: Development of a HF research agenda for this specific issue of interaction with mobile devices, to identify and extend the research community in this topic. Moreover, to sensitise designers to the particular interaction-design issues in these kind of communication scenarios (mobile and contextual learning models, interface evaluation, etc.)

Background of the perspective participants: The workshop is intended for practitioners working in the wireless industry (telcos, device manufacturers, service providers, etc.) and for HF academics and students with interests in human computer interaction, technology-enhanced learning and mobile interaction. Participants will be asked to submit a brief position paper of 2-4 pages, or a reference to a mobile product/project in which they have been involved. Participants will be selected on the basis of their interest in and familiarity with the topic.

Detailed description of workshop: Participants will be invited to choose a format of context-dependent mobile service and hypothesise a scenario of use (mainly when he is 'on the move' - e.g. in a train, using a pocket PC or a mobile phone) that will enhance users' interactive experience with their mobile devices. Once the usage scenario is well defined, participants will required to know (assume) the expectations, limitations and behaviour of mobile users and design appropriate interaction models. Trans-cultural adaptability and ethic aspects will be analysed. Good communication with the service provider is a key factor to add value to the user, possibly involving personalized services. A coerent and relevant multi-channel identity, for example with related website, will be analysed to ensure user's fidelity. Interface's usability will be tested according to:

learnability
users' satisfaction
users' expectations and perceived value of the services provided
speed in task completion
number of irreversible mistakes
level of interaction enabled

How to participate: Registration to the workshop is required. For details and fee see Mobile HCI 2002 web site.

Program Committee of Workshop 3:

Anxo Cereijo Roibás, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
Stefania Marcoli, designer
In collaboration with Giorgio Da Bormida, GIUNTI Ricerca, MOBIlearn project, Genoa, Italy