Andreas Komninos

Text input on a smart watch

Smart watches provide users with access to many applications directly from their wrists, without the need to touch their smartphones. While applications such as email, messaging, calendar, and social networking provide views on the watch, there is normally no text-entry method, so users cannot reply on the same device. Here, the authors introduce their interaction design and an optimized alphabetic layout for smart-watch text entry, and present a lab evaluation of an implemented prototype using the OpenAdaptxt engine on a Sony SmartWatch 2. While raising some problems, the feedback from study participants indicates that reasonable quality and speed is achievable on a smart watch and encourages future work in this area. This article is part of a special issue on wearable computing.

Towards high quality text entry on smartwatches

Smartwatches now provide users with access to many applications on smartphones direct from their wrists, without the need to touch their smartphone. While applications such as email, messaging, calendar and social networking provide views on the watch, there is normally no text entry method so users cannot reply on the same device. Here we introduce requirements for smartwatch text entry, an optimised alphabetic layout and present a prototype implementation together with preliminary user feedback. While raising some problems, the feedback gives indicates that reasonable quality and speed is achievable on a smartwatch and encourages our future work.

DibA: An Adaptive Broadcasting Scheme in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Broadcasting is a vital communication mechanism in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, as it is the key element for exchanging control packets to support some services such as management and routing protocols. Simple Flooding, which is mostly used as the broadcasting mechanism, is neither resource efficient nor reliable especially in high populated and dense networks. The Distance-Based(DB) scheme is one of the schemes proposed to alleviate the Flooding effects. However, DB uses constant pre-determined distance threshold value regardless of network dynamics. In this paper, we propose an adaptive Distance-Based (DibA)scheme, which locally determines the density of the network and adjusts the distance threshold of everyr ebroadcasting operation without relying on HELLO packets or GPS systems. Our simulation study shows that our proposed scheme achieves considerable performance improvement over DB while the average value of transmission packets is not a function of network size.

A calendar based Internet content pre-caching agent for small computing devices

We described in earlier publications the principles of a system where Internet content would be pre-cached, based on contextual information obtained from a user’s electronic calendar. The model for such a system envisioned a set of cooperating agents, distributed on a user’s desktop and mobile device, which would be responsible for making decisions on the context and preferences of the user, and downloading the relevant internet content through a land-based broadband connection and storing it on the mobile device. This paper presents and discusses established pre-caching techniques and their suitability for use on mobile information access scenarios. It proceeds in describing the implementation details of an alternative approach, a calendar-based pre-caching system and presents the findings of tests that were made with human subjects on such a system.

A pervasive gesture-driven augmented reality prototype using wireless sensor body area networks

This paper describes the prototype implementation of a pervasive, wearable augmented reality (AR) system based on a full body-motion-capture system using low-power wireless sensors. The system uses body motion to visualize and interact with virtual objects populating AR settings. Body motion is used to implement a whole body gesture-driven interface to manipulate the virtual objects. Gestures are mapped to correspondent behaviors for virtual objects, such as controlling the playback and volume of virtual audio players or displaying a virtual objects metadata.

Patterns of usage and context in interaction with communication support applications in mobile devices

Contact lists are one of the most frequently used applications on mobile devices. Users are reluctant to delete or remove contacts from their repositories and as modern smartphones provide an unlimited contact list storage space, these become increasingly large, sometimes measuring several hundred entries. In this paper we present our findings from two experiments with user-subjective and quantitative data concerning the use of mobile contact lists. We examine the role that frequency and recency of usage plays in the determination of a contacts importance, with a view to aid the speed and efficacy of the information seeking and retrieval process during the use of the contact list application.

Urban exploration using audio scents

We describe the design and evaluation of an audio-based mixed reality navigation system that uses the concept of audio scents for the implicit guidance of tourists and visitors of urban areas, as an alternative to turn-by-turn guidance systems. A field trial of our prototype uncovers great potential for this type of implicit navigation and is received positively by our participants. We discuss the technical implementation of our prototype, detailed findings from quantitative and subjective evaluation data gathered during the field trial and highlight possible strands for further research and development.

The use of mobile contact list applications and a context-oriented framework to support their design

Contact lists are one of the most frequently used applications on mobile devices. They are used not only as contact detail repositories, but also as temporary information storage for unrelated items, such as PINs or passwords. Users are reluctant to delete or remove contacts from their repositories. As such, these become increasingly large, sometimes measuring several hundred entries. In this paper we present our findings from early investigations into the use of mobile Contact Lists. We also propose a context oriented design framework to aid the speed and efficacy of the information seeking and retrieval process during the use of the Contact List application.

Designed with Older Adults to SupportBetter Error Correction in SmartPhone Text Entry: The MaxieKeyboard

Through our participatory design with older adults a need for improved error support for texting on smartphones emerged. Here we present the MaxieKeyboard based on the outcomes from this process. The keyboard highlights errors, auto-corrections and suggestion bar usage in the composition area and gives feedback on the keyboard on typing correctness. Our older adult groups have shown strong support for the keyboard.

HotCity: enhancing ubiquitous maps with social context heatmaps

In this paper we present HotCity, a service that demonstrates how collecting and mining the interactions that users make with the urban environment through social networks, can help tourists better plan activities, through sharing the collectively generated social context of a smart, connected city, as a background layer to mapped POI. The data for our service stems from the collection and analysis of 1-month worth of collected human-physical environment interactions (i.e., Foursquare check-ins) data for Oulu, a medium-sized city in Finland, where our service is deployed in ubiquitous public displays. Our analysis demonstrates that a good model of the citys dynamics can be built despite the low popularity of Foursquare amongst locals. Our findings from the field-based trial of the HotCity service yield several useful insights and important contributions. We found that the method of using a heatmap as an intermediate layer of environmental context does not negatively affect the experience of users at the cognitive level, compared with a more traditional map and POI type of interface, where temporal aspects of context are not present. In the concluding sections, we discuss how this cloud-based service can also be used in a variety of ubiquitous computing platforms.