Our life is characterized by the presence of a multitude of interactive devices and smart objects exploited for disparate goals in different contexts of use. Thus, it is impossible for application developers to predict at design time the devices and objects users will exploit, how they will be arranged, and in which situations and for which objectives they will be used. For such reasons, it is important to make end users able to easily and autonomously personalize the behaviour of their Internet of Things applications, so that they can better comply with their specific expectations. In this paper, we present a method and a set of tools that allow end users without programming experience to customize the context-dependent behaviour of their Web applications through the specification of trigger-action rules. The environment is able to support end-user specification of more flexible behaviour than what can be done with existing commercial tools, and it also includes an underlying infrastructure able to detect the possible contextual changes in order to achieve the desired behaviour. The resulting set of tools is able to support the dynamic creation and execution of personalized application versions more suitable for users’ needs in specific contexts of use. Thus, it represents a contribution to obtaining low threshold/high ceiling environments. We also report on an example application in the home automation domain, and a user study that has provided useful positive feedback.
Interactive games in museums User interface software and technology a b s t r a c tIn this paper, we propose UbiCicero, a multi-device, location-aware museum guide able to opportunistically exploit large screens when users are nearby. Various types of games are included in addition to the museum and artwork descriptions. The mobile guide is equipped with an RFID reader, which detects nearby tagged artworks. By taking into account context-dependent information, including the current user position and behaviour history, as well as the type of device available, more personalised and relevant information is provided to the user, enabling a richer overall experience. We also present example applications of this solution and then discuss the results of first empirical tests performed to evaluate the usefulness and usability of the enhanced multi-device guide.
Ubiquitous environments call for user interfaces able to migrate across various types of devices while preserving task continuity. One fundamental issue in migratory user interfaces is how to preserve the state while moving from one device to another. In this paper we present a solution for the interactive part of Web applications. In particular, we focus on the most problematic part, which is maintaining the JavaScript state. We also describe an example application to illustrate the support provided by our migration platform.
Context-dependent adaptation is becoming a continuous necessity since we access our applications in more and more variegated contexts. Multimodality can be a significant support in such changing settings. We present a solution for obtaining automatic augmentation of Web applications in such a way as to enable them to exploit various combinations of graphical and vocal modalities. We report on the software architecture supporting such augmentations and its underlying context manager, as well as some example applications and first user tests.
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