Dimitris Raptis

Context-based design of mobile applications for museums: a survey of existing practices

This paper includes a review of mobile applications used in museum environments, focusing on the notion of context and its constituent dimensions. Museums are a representative example in which the context influences interaction. During a museum visit, the visitors interact with the exhibits through mobile devices. We argue that, effective interaction design needs to take into consideration multiple dimensions of the context. Since context is often misinterpreted, superficially used or poorly defined, we attempt to analyze a number of existing mobile applications used in museum environments, through this perspective. The point of analysis is to evaluate those applications against various context dimensions. We argue that these results can be useful in other kinds of applications, in which the impact of context is not taken for granted.

A novel coordination mode of the 1-hydroxybenzotriazolate (btaO−) ligand: preparation, X-ray crystal structure and spectroscopic characterizationof the trinuclear complex [Ni3(btaO)6(NH3)6]

Reaction of Ni(NO3)2 · 6H2O with 1-hydroxybenzotriazole (btaOH) in DMF/aqueous NH3 and layering of the resulting solution with MeCN yields the complex [Ni3(btaO)6(NH3)6] · 0.47DMF · 0.75MeCN · 1.58H2O, (ca. 80% yield), the structure of which has been determined by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. The asymmetric unit contains two, structurally similar, trinuclear molecules. The six-coordinate NiII atom is linked to each terminal NiII atom by three btaO− ions; three NH3 molecules complete the octahedral coordination at each terminal metal ion. The btaO− ions behave as bidentate bridging ligands, binding through N(3) to the central NiII atom and through N(2) to the terminal NiII atoms, with the deprotonated oxygen atom remaining uncoordinated and participating in hydrogen bonding with the ammine ligand. The complex was also characterized by room-temperature effective magnetic moment and spectroscopic (i.r., ligand field) studies. The data are discussed in terms of the nature of bonding and other known structures.

Considering Cost in Usability Evaluation of Mobile Applications: Who, Where and When

As computing moves from desktop to outdoor everyday life activities, usability evaluation must take into account new aspects, related with mobility and space. In this paper the effectiveness of established usability evaluation methods is examined through an extensive case study. The usability of an educational mobile museum application was tested using three different methods: inspection by experts, use in lab setting and use in the field. Results indicate that each method uncovers different types of problems at different cost. We believe that a combination of these methods may be worthwhile since their produced results seem to be complementary.

Designing Pervasive Games for Learning

Pervasive games have been proposed as a suitable way to support learning, especially in places rich in information, as for example museums and cultural heritage sites. This paper reports on the work performed to identify guidelines that help designers in developing games able to provide an effective learning experience in such contexts. Such guidelines complement other proposals available in the literature. The presented contribution is a first step of a wider work aimed at deepening our understanding of pervasive educational games, with a special emphasis on games in the cultural heritage domain, in order to inform the designers of such challenging applications.

Delivering multimedia content in enabled cultural spaces

In the context of a project involving development of an electronic guide and an educational application for a historical cultural museum, we defined an architecture that permits efficient and effective co-existence of objects in the physical space and digital multimedia content. Handheld devices were used for mediating the process. The prime consideration of the developed architecture was the optimal delivery of multimedia content, mainly in the form of audio but also video and text, to users of handheld devices, which raises an interesting number of issues both in terms of technology used and human-computer interaction.

Darstellung und Untersuchung neuer komplexer Jodverbindungen von Indium(III) und Gallium(III)

The present work contains the preparation, for the first time, of complex iodo acids of gallium(III) and indium(III) as well as the preparation of compounds of these acids with pyridine and aniline. A study of some of the chemical and physical properties of these acids and the UV and IR spectra of the pyridine and aniline compounds are also described.