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Design for outdoor mobile multimedia : representation, content and interactivity for mobile tourist guides

The research reported in this thesis explores issues of information design for mobile devices, in particular those relating to selection and presentation of on-screen information and interactive functionality for users of mobile phones. The example domain is that of mobile tour guides for tourists, local people, students and families. Central to the research is the issue of multimodality, particularly the graphic and interaction design issues involved in viewing video, in combination with other media, on a mobile device, in an outdoor context. The study produced three main results: 1. An analytical framework for user-experience concerns in cultural heritage settings, 2. Design recommendations for outdoor mobile multimedia guides and 4. Refinements in methods for collecting and analysing data from fieldwork with visitors in cultural heritage settings. Those results were formulated for the use of mobile guide designers. The methodology used to inform and structure the work was Design Research, involving literature review and empirical work, including user trials of a prototype tourist guide developed in the project. The literature review covered areas of tourism, multimedia design, mobile HCI and existing mobile guides. Outdoor fieldwork exercises were carried out with three different cultural information sources - human tour guide, paper based guide and mobile guide app - in order to identify any problems that visitors might have and to gather requirements for the development of a mobile cultural guide. Qualitative analysis was applied to analyse the video observations and questionnaires completed during the tours. Requirements were grouped and analysed to give substantial information for a conceptual design. Personas and scenarios were created based on real participants and situations that occurred on the tours. A mobile guide prototype was developed and evaluated in the field with visitors. Qualitative analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. Visitors were asked about their preferences among various multimedia design elements and answered a questionnaire on their experience. The elements that affect the user experience with outdoor mobile guides were categorised and organised into a framework. It became apparent that users' experience of technology (in this case the mobile tourist guide) and environment are affected by context, content and look and feel elements. This framework of user experience generated a design toolkit with a collection of recommendations for designers of such systems. The recommendations are described in context of usage and have a rating system with strength of evidence and confidence based on how often they appeared in the field works and solutions tested.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:589938
Date January 2012
Creatorsde Souza Pereira Candello, Heloisa Caroline
PublisherUniversity of Brighton
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttps://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/0de623b2-11d7-462b-aa8b-06433c9f78e7

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