Research centre
Communication and Computing Research Centre

Date
2009 - 2014

Tags
Information Technology and Interactions

Insight

Research Degree Project

As microchip and sensing technologies have developed, more and more context aware applications have been introduced to our daily lives. The use of context aware sensors and wireless connectivity, like GPS and WIFI, provides many opportunities for data rich responsive applications, integrated with a variety of products.

Many of the applications have been proposed to improve the quality of life, and furthermore, to engage the end users with a richer or augmented environment, such as the GPS navigator and augmented reality. However, although many researchers bring innovative ideas to the field of context aware computing, there is still a lack of human factors research in many projects, which could reduce the envisaged user acceptance and adoption.

This research takes a human-centred perspective, which focuses on user’s perception, motivation, preference and subjective experience in context aware activities.

The results of this research provided empirical evidence of the effects of different motivations on user's preference and behaviour in context aware adaptation. Furthermore, the empirical findings provided a more in-depth understanding of the proposed human factors and their relationships involved in context aware services. In addition, the results also show the capability of the empirical method used for this research. The empirical method was further reviewed by digital designers from local companies. The method is presented with the intention of helping designers to identify and evaluate the human factors involved in context aware activities, and therefore to materialize their good ideas to real pleasant part of our lives.

Project Supervisors

• Dr Chris Roast (Director of Study)
• Dr Martin Beer (Second Supervisor)

Researchers involved

Xiaohui Zhang - Research Degree Student - Alumni (2009-2014)