Hiding the Complexity of Location-based Services

Matthias Böhmer, Gernot Bauer, Wolfgang WichtMünster University of Applied Sciences

April 4, 2009

Workshop on Location and the Web (LocWeb 2009)

CHI2009, Boston, MA, USA, April 4-9, 2009

1) Introduction

2) Solution Approach

3) Conclusion

1) Introduction

2) Solution Approach

3) Conclusion

Technological Level

Geographic positioning technologies becomemore and more common in mobile devices

Mobile connectivity gets cheaper, faster and more reliable

Infrastructure for ubiquitous computing is available

Application level

Demand for mobile services increases

Provisioning of mobile services is reserved to professionals

Utilization is too complicated for end-users

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Current Situation in Mobile Computing

Location-based Service

Application, carrying a value to its user

Relevant and available at a certain location

Complexity

Proprietary development work, expert knowledge

Effort for download, installation, and configuration

Hiding the Complexity

Simplifying the life cycle of location-based services

Complexity of Location-based Services

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1) Introduction

2) Solution Approach

3) Conclusion

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Simplification along the Life Cycle of LBS

Widgets

Concept borrowed from the web

Lightweight, self-contained applications

User interface and functional logic

Widgets as LBS

Applications for mobile utilization

Contextual binding (location)

Semantic binding (tagging)

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Widgets for Location-based Services

Requirements

Useable for the common internet user

No need for specialized knowledge

Easy and intuitive development environment

Building blocks for user interface and functional logic

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Authoring Toolkit for User-driven Provision

Authoring Toolkit for User-driven Provision

10Hiding the Complexity of Location-based Services, Matthias Böhmer

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Context-aware Utilization

Filtering by Location

Low-level context

Spatial relevance

Problem of choice overload

Profile-based Filtering

High-level context

Semantic relevance

Tag based

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Context-aware Utilization

1) Introduction

2) Solution Approach

3) Conclusion

Examples

Location-based surveys (text, media, survey form)

Mobile avatar (contact form, news feed, guest book)

Advertising

Possibilities

Combination of existing building blocks

Modifying existing widgets

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Use Cases and Scenarios

Current Results

User-generated location-based services

Location-aware and personalized mobile user interface

LBS 2.0

Future Work

More functionality and building blocks for widgets

Delve deeper into context-awareness

User study and evaluation

Using web technologies on mobile phones

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Current Results and Future Work

Thank you for your attention!Matthias Böhmer, Gernot Bauer, Wolfgang Wicht

matthias.boehmer@fh-muenster.dewww.se.fh-muenster.dewww.procomo.org