Josep Blat

Learning Design Tools

Griffiths, D., Blat, J., Garcia, R., Vogten, H. & Kwong, KL. (2005). Learning Design Tools. In: Koper, R. & Tattersall, C., Learning Design: A Handbook on Modelling and Delivering Networked Education and Training (pp. 109-136). Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.

Leveraging explicitly disclosed location information to understand tourist dynamics: a case study

In recent years, the large deployment of mobile devices has led to a massive increase in the volume of records of where people have been and when they were there. The analysis of these spatio-temporal data can supply high-level human behaviour information valuable to urban planners, local authorities, and designer of location-based services. In this article, we describe our approach to collect and analyse the history of physical presence of tourists from the digital footprints they publicly disclose on the web. Our work takes place in the Province of Florence in Italy, where the insights on the visitors’ flows and on the nationalities of the tourists who do not sleep in town has been limited to information from survey-based hotel and museums frequentation. In fact, most local authorities in the world must face this dearth of data on tourist dynamics. In this case study, we used a corpus of geographically referenced photos taken in the province by 4280 photographers over a period of two years. Based on the disclosure of the location of the photos, we design geovisualisations to reveal the tourist concentration and spatio-temporal flows. Our initial results provide insights on the density of tourists, the points of interests they visit as well as the most common trajectories they follow.

3D graphics on the web: A survey

Abstract In recent years, 3D graphics has become an increasingly important part of the multimedia web experience. Following on from the advent of the X3D standard and the definition of a declarative approach to presenting 3D graphics on the web, the rise of WebGL has allowed lower level access to graphics hardware of ever increasing power. In parallel, remote rendering techniques permit streaming of high-quality 3D graphics onto a wide range of devices, and recent years have also seen much research on methods of content delivery for web-based 3D applications. All this development is reflected in the increasing number of application fields for the 3D web. In this paper, we reflect this activity by presenting the first survey of the state of the art in the field. We review every major approach to produce real-time 3D graphics rendering in the browser, briefly summarise the approaches for remote rendering of 3D graphics, before surveying complementary research on data compression methods, and notable application fields. We conclude by assessing the impact and popularity of the 3D web, reviewing the past and looking to the future.

Telling the story of older people e-mailing: An ethnographical study

While e-mail is the Internet application most used by older people, very little is known about how they interact with e-mail systems and use them in their daily lives. We undertook a 3-year ethnographical study aimed at revealing and explaining real life e-mailing. We describe and discuss the nature of e-mail use in terms of social circles; frequency, type of content and patterns of communication; relationship with other technologies and activities; motivation and interactive experiences. Within this context of everyday use, we uncover and explain the (relative) importance of several interaction barriers, such as cognitive load, difficulties using input devices and perception of visual information. We claim that cognitive difficulties are much more relevant than difficulties in reading from the screen, for instance, so challenging results of current HCI research with older people. We show and discuss some implications for designing better e-mail systems (and interactive technologies) for older people.

Everyday use of computer-mediated communication tools and its evolution over time: An ethnographical study with older people

Based on a 3-year ethnographical study, this paper discusses the prolonged use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools by approximately 400 older people in an adult education centre in Barcelona (Spain). Contrary to oversimplified views of older people as ICT users, this paper shows that they make a very rich use of CMC tools. Relevant elements of this use are their permanent desire to feel and be included, social, independent and competent ICT users. Despite the numerous interaction issues they face when using ICT, some are constant across different tools. Difficulties due to cognition limit their interactions more severely than those problems due to perceiving visual information or using the mouse. By examining the longitudinal aspect of the study, this paper addresses the evolution of technology use and whether the interaction issues that most of the current older people exhibit will be relevant when todays more ICT literate young adults grow older. Interaction issues due to cognition are time-persistent, and independent of both experience and practice with ICT. Difficulties reading from the screen or using input devices are overcome with ICT experience. The strategies adopted by older people for coping with all these interaction issues are always targeted at feeling and being included, social, independent and competent ICT users. The results deepen current understanding of tools use in connecting older people with their social circles and the interaction issues most of them encounter when using ICT. The results also suggest that cognitive-related problems will be the most important ones in our work with the next generation of older people.

About the relevance of accessibility barriers in the everyday interactions of older people with the web

This paper reports key findings of a 3-year ethnographical study of the everyday interactions of older people with the web. The data consisted of in-situ observations and conversations with 388 older people while using myriads of web and computer technologies daily. The results revealed that the accessibility barriers that had a more negative effect on the daily interactions of older people with the web were due to their difficulties in remembering steps, understanding web and computer jargon and using the mouse, despite their willingness to use it. These obstacles were much more important than those caused by their difficulties perceiving visual information, understanding icons and using the keyboard. The prioritization of barriers was explained by two key aspects in ageing with new technologies, independency and inclusiveness, and a desired condition of web (user) interfaces, consistency in terminology. These results suggest that these three aspects should be considered carefully in enhancing web accessibility for older people, as well as allowing us to grasp older peoples everyday web accessibility barriers. The paper discusses possible ways of making use of these findings to make the web more accessible to older people.

Urban Computing and Mobile Devices

n this issues Works in Progress department, we have 12 urban computing and mobile device entries that span a wide range of computing and social areas. The first entry examines how an urban environment could operate as a large-scale, real-time control system. One project focuses on annotating public spaces and sharing the tags with others. Two projects tie together social networking in cyberspace with local urban communities. Two projects examine computing and social interactions in physical spaces. Two entries explore how to combine synthetic and physical views of urban environments. Four entries investigate how we explore urban spaces, interact with technology in those spaces, and create shared community histories.In this issues Works in Progress department, we have 12 urban computing and mobile device entries that span a wide range of computing and social areas. The first entry examines how an urban environment could operate as a large-scale, real-time control system. One project focuses on annotating public spaces and sharing the tags with others. Two projects tie together social networking in cyberspace with local urban communities. Two projects examine computing and social interactions in physical spaces. Two entries explore how to combine synthetic and physical views of urban environments. Four entries investigate how we explore urban spaces, interact with technology in those spaces, and create shared community histories.

To be or not to be in situ outdoors, and other implications for design and implementation, in geolocated mobile learning

Fostering contextual learning in situ outdoors is one of the main opportunities favored by mobile computing. Of particular interest is the application of the Global Positioning Service (GPS) to geolocate educational resources. However, geolocating resources is not enough to support learning activities where students explore and interact with the outdoors physical environment practicing in situ related knowledge and skills. This paper studies the factors that have to be considered when designing, virtually or in situ, this type of mobile learning scenarios. Two experiments illustrate and analyze these factors. The results lead to a set of implications-in design, enactment and monitoring-for the development of mobile learning systems.

The co-evolution of taxi drivers and their in-car navigation systems

The recent market success of in-car navigation systems creates an opportunity to investigate the appropriation of location-aware systems outside laboratory settings. Through ethnographical lenses, we study how this technology changed the practice of a massive community of its early adopters, the taxi drivers of Barcelona (Spain) and, specifically, their exploitation of pervasive geoinformation. The results show co-evolution: taxi drivers adapt to their in-car navigation systems and adapt them to their needs; in particular, there are evidences of an alteration of the learning processes and of technology appropriation to reduce stress rather than to improve efficiency. We argue that these findings can inform the design of next-generation location-based services.

New tools for studying visitor behaviours in museums: a case study at the Louvre

In this paper we discuss the exploitation of data originated from Bluetooth-enabled devices to understand visitor’s behaviour in the Louvre museum in Paris, France. The collected samples are analysed to examine frequent patterns in visitor’s behaviours, their trajectory, length of stay and some relationships, offering new details on behaviour than previously available. Our work reinforces the emergence of a new methodology to study visitors. It is part of recent lines of investigation that exploit the presence of pervasive data networks to complement more traditional methods in tourism studies, such as surveys based on observation or interviews. However, most past experiments have explored quantitative data coming from mobile phones, GPS, or even geo-tagged user generated content to understand behaviour in a region, or a city, at a larger scale than that of our current work.