Abstract
Although numerous context-aware applications have been developed and there have been technological advances for acquiring contextual information, it is still difficult to develop and prototype interesting context-aware applications. This is largely due to the lack of programming support available to both programmers and end-users. This lack of support closes off the context-aware application design space to a larger group of users. We present iCAP, a system that allows end-users to visually design a wide variety of context-aware applications, including those based on if-then rules, temporal and spatial relationships and environment personalization. iCAP allows users to quickly prototype and test their applications without writing any code. We describe the study we conducted to understand end-users’ mental models of context-aware applications, how this impacted the design of our system and several applications that demonstrate iCAP’s richness and ease of use. We also describe a user study performed with 20 end-users, who were able to use iCAP to specify every application that they envisioned, illustrating iCAP’s expressiveness and usability.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Abowd, G.D., et al.: Cyberguide: A mobile context-aware tour guide. ACM Wireless Networks 3(5), 421–433 (1997)
Bardram, J.: The Java Context-Awareness Framework (JCAF) – A service infrastructure and programming framework for context-aware applications. In: Pervasive 2004, pp. 98–115 (2004)
Chen, G., Kotz, D.: Solar: An open platform for context-aware mobile applications. In: Pervasive 2002, pp. 41–47 (2002)
Dey, A.K., Salber, D., Abowd, G.D.: A conceptual framework and a toolkit for supporting the rapid prototyping of context-aware applications. Human-Computer Interaction Journal 16(2-4), 97–166 (2001)
Dey, A.K., et al.: A Cappella: Programming by demonstration of context-aware applications. In: CHI 2004, pp. 33–40 (2004)
Espinoza, F., et al.: GeoNotes: Social and navigational aspects of location-based information systems. In: Abowd, G.D., Brumitt, B., Shafer, S. (eds.) UbiComp 2001. LNCS, vol. 2201, pp. 2–17. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Gajos, K., Fox, H., Shrobe, H.: End user empowerment in human centered pervasive computing. In: Pervasive 2002, pp. 134–140 (2002)
Hong, J.I., Landay, J.A.: An infrastructure approach to context-aware computing. Human-Computer Interaction Journal 16(2-4), 287–303 (2001)
Hong, J.I., Landay, J.A.: SATIN: A toolkit for informal ink-based applications. In: CHI 2000, pp. 63–71 (2000)
Hull, R., Clayton, B., Melamed, T.: Rapid authoring of mediascapes. In: Davies, N., Mynatt, E.D., Siio, I. (eds.) UbiComp 2004. LNCS, vol. 3205, pp. 125–142. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Humble, J., Crabtree, A., Hemmings, T., Åkesson, K.-P., Koleva, B., Rodden, T., Hansson, P.: “Playing with the bits” user-configuration of ubiquitous domestic environments. In: Dey, A.K., Schmidt, A., McCarthy, J.F. (eds.) UbiComp 2003. LNCS, vol. 2864, pp. 256–263. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Lamming, M., Flynn, M.: Forget-me-not: Intimate computing in support of human memory. In: International Symposium on Next Generation Human Interfaces, pp. 125–128 (1994)
Li, Y., Hong, J.I., Landay, J.A.: Topiary: Tool for prototyping location-enhanced applications. In: UIST 2004, pp. 217–226 (2004)
Mackay, W.E., et al.: How do experienced Information Lens users use rules? In: CHI 1989, pp. 211–216 (1989)
Mozer, M.C.: The neural network house: An environment that adapts to its inhabitants. In: AAAI Spring Symposium on Intelligent Environments, pp. 110–114 (1998)
Pane, J.F., Myers, B.A.: Tabular and textual methods for selecting objects from a group. In: IEEE International Symposium on Visual Languages 2000, pp. 157–164 (2000)
Pascoe, J.: The Stick-e Note Architecture: Extending the interface pbeyond the user. In: Intelligent User Interfaces 1997, pp. 261–264 (1997)
Pascoe, J., Ryan, N., Morse, D.R.: Issues in developing context-aware computing. In: Gellersen, H.-W. (ed.) HUC 1999. LNCS, vol. 1707, pp. 208–221. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
Repenning, A., Citrin, W.: Agentsheets: Applying grid-based spatial reasoning to human-computer interaction. In: IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages, pp. 77–82 (1983)
Scerri, P., Reed, N.: The EASE actor development environment. Swedish AI Society (2000)
Schilit, B., Adams, N., Want, R.: Context-aware computing applications. In: Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (1994)
Shu, N.C.: Visual Programming: Perspectives and Approaches. IBM Systems Journal 28, 525–547 (1989)
Truong, K.N., Huang, E.M., Abowd, G.D.: CAMP: A magnetic poetry interface for end-user programming of capture applications for the home. In: Davies, N., Mynatt, E.D., Siio, I. (eds.) UbiComp 2004. LNCS, vol. 3205, pp. 143–160. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Weiser, M.: Computer for the 21st century. Scientific American 265(3), 94–104 (1991)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Dey, A.K., Sohn, T., Streng, S., Kodama, J. (2006). iCAP: Interactive Prototyping of Context-Aware Applications. In: Fishkin, K.P., Schiele, B., Nixon, P., Quigley, A. (eds) Pervasive Computing. Pervasive 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3968. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11748625_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11748625_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-33894-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-33895-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)