4th International ICST Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services

Research Article

A User-centered Approach to Context-awareness in Mobile Computing

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4450989,
        author={Yaser Mowafi and Dongsong Zhang},
        title={A User-centered Approach to Context-awareness in Mobile Computing},
        proceedings={4th International ICST Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={MOBIQUITOUS},
        year={2008},
        month={2},
        keywords={context-aware computing; mobile application; ubiquitous computing; context modeling.},
        doi={10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4450989}
    }
    
  • Yaser Mowafi
    Dongsong Zhang
    Year: 2008
    A User-centered Approach to Context-awareness in Mobile Computing
    MOBIQUITOUS
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/MOBIQ.2007.4450989
Yaser Mowafi1,*, Dongsong Zhang1,*
  • 1: Information Systems Department University of Maryland, Baltimore County Baltimore, Maryland 21250
*Contact email: ymowafi1@umbc.edu, zhangd@umbc.edu

Abstract

Context-aware computing is aimed to make mobile devices smarter by giving them the ability to recognize and interpret the surrounding environment and react proactively and intelligently. However, the development and deployment of context-aware mobile artifacts are still at their infancy, with few theories and little empirical evidence about how to develop an effective context-aware mobile application. In this article, we propose a user-centered approach for obtaining and parsing context, driven by users’ context of interest that offers more interactive and construed context to users. We seek to reduce the complexity of the traditional sensor-based infrastructure context acquisition and interpretation, by leveraging the natural dialogue between the users and their mobile devices. Hence, emphasize the value of such dialogue over the users’ ordinary situationalcontext to gradually build their own context and contextawareness profiles. We present a conceptual framework for our approach, and illustrate the usage of this framework through applied scenarios.