This Thesis is submitted to the University of Strathclyde in partial fulfilment of the Regulations for the Degree of MSc in Computer & Internet Technologies.
Mobile Tourist Guide Frøy Birte Bjørneseth
Supervised by Dr Mark Dunlop Department of Computer & Information Sciences September 2005
Except where otherwise expressly indicated the work reported in this document is my own. It has been performed during my MSc Degree in Computer & Internet Technologies, and has not been submitted for assessment in connection with any other award whatsoever.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Mark Dunlop for his help and guidance throughout this thesis. I would also like to thank my fellow CIT students who have given me advice and answered questions during the development of this prototype. Iain Hale, Adnan Syed Mazher, Lynsey Hanlon and Catheren Beaton have given their undivided support when questionnaires were to be handled out and questions were asked. And also, I would like to thank my loved ones in Norway who have pushed me forward and given me mental as well as academic support, and most important helped me reach my goal. To my family in Scotland, I would like to thank for giving me guidance and help during the time I have been living in Scotland.
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Abstract Tourism today, is one of the largest, if not the largest, industry in the world and the majority of the public have been travelling at one point in their lives. The holiday experience is a business with unlimited resources and the experience is taken further and developed every single day. Holidays that are fitted to suit the individual needs are offered, but there is one issue regarding tourism that have not changed for many years, the traditional tourist maps and guidebooks. Most people at one time or another has used maps and guidebooks and the experience using these helping “tools” are divided. The latest decade the technology have developed rapidly and computers have become smaller and available for the private users as well as for business purposes. This opens a door to a new market where handheld computers and mobile technology can improve and renew areas that have been the same for years, like the usage of the traditional tourist maps and guidebooks. The mobile tourist guide takes advantage of the latest technologies and can take tourism to a new level when it comes to navigation and guidance of tourists. This thesis investigates the issues around the mobile tourist guide and how it can be made more suitable for people who travel in groups and also how mobile tourist guides will be welcomed on the market, which is already fully booked with gadgets and electronic devices. A prototype was developed using a smartphone connected to GPS where the focus is sat on the group rather than the individual and localisation of fellow travellers is simulated.
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List of Figures
Fig. 1-1: Project timescale Fig.2-1: The Hummingbird prototype Fig.3-1: Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone edition and SmartPhone Fig.3-2: Smartphone input controls Fig.3-3: Communication within Mobile Tourist Guide Fig.3-4: Illustration Latitude and Longitude Fig.3-5: Start page Fig.3-6: Menu structure Fig.3-7: Get Map Fig.3-8: Activity Diagram illustrating the flow of the system Fig.3-9: Illustrating coordinates on the map Fig. 3-10: MySQL database illustrating the GUIDE table Fig.4-1: Age division between MALE and FEMALE participants Fig.4-2: Consider use of Mobile Tourist Guide, MALE + FEMALE Fig.4-3: Frequency of grouptravels, MALE & FEMALE Fig. 4-4: Which type of group do people travel in? Fig.4-5: Usage of traditional maps and guidebooks Fig. 4-6: Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than traditional maps and books? MALE & FEMALE Fig. 4-7: Would you trust a mobile tourist guide? MALE & FEMALE Fig.5-1: Orange SPV E200 Fig.5-2: NAVMAN 4400 Fig.5-3 Power supply NAVMAN 4400 Fig. 5-4: EMTAC CRUX II Fig.5-5: Interface GPS application Fig.5-6: Interface MTG Fig. 5-7:Structure of menu Fig.5-8: Get Coordinates Fig.5-9: PHP output in Internet Explorer Fig.5-10: Simple HTML
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List of Tables Table.2-1: Events and subtasks Table 4-1: Preferred facilities on Mobile Tourist Guide Table 4-2: Advantages traditional maps and guidebooks Table 4-3: Disadvantages traditional maps and guidebooks Table 4-4: Male comments Table 4-5: Female comments
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Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Project Proposal...................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Aims for Project ..................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Aim achievement.................................................................................................... 3 1.5 Timescale ............................................................................................................... 4 1.6 Chapter Outline ...................................................................................................... 5 2.0 Research and Related Work ........................................................................................... 7 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 7 2.2 Context- aware Applications.................................................................................. 8 2.3 Electronic Maps.................................................................................................... 10 2.4 The CyberGuide ................................................................................................... 12 2.5 The Hummingbird- study ..................................................................................... 14 2.6 CRUMPET and the Lancaster GUIDE ................................................................ 15 2.7 m-ToGuide ........................................................................................................... 16 2.8 Conclusion............................................................................................................ 19 3.0 System Design and User Interface ............................................................................... 18 3.1 Initial Design ........................................................................................................ 18 3.1.1 Pocket PC v. SmartPhone................................................................................. 18 3.1.2 Design Requirements ....................................................................................... 19 3.2 Specified Design .................................................................................................. 20 3.2.1 Specification..................................................................................................... 20 3.2.2 System Communication Design ....................................................................... 21 3.2.3 GPS: Latitude and Longitude........................................................................... 21 3.2.4 Software and User Interface Design................................................................. 23 3.2.5 Activity Diagram.............................................................................................. 24 3.2.6 Conversion algorithm....................................................................................... 25 3.2.7 Design of MySQL Database ............................................................................ 26 3.2.8 Design constraints ............................................................................................ 27 3.2.9 Use cases .......................................................................................................... 28 4.0 Market Survey .............................................................................................................. 29 4.1 Gender and Age.................................................................................................... 30 4.2 Occupation ........................................................................................................... 31 4.3 Interest of usage of Mobile Tourist Guide ........................................................... 32 4.4 Preferred facilities on the Mobile Tourist Guide ................................................. 33 4.5 Group Awareness and Group travelling............................................................... 35 4.6 Categories of Group travels.................................................................................. 37 4.7 Usage of the traditional Maps and Guidebooks ................................................... 38 4.8 Advantages and Disadvantages............................................................................ 39 4.9 Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than the traditional?............................... 40 4.10 Trustworthiness and Security ............................................................................... 41 4.11 Comments and Opinions ...................................................................................... 42 4.12 Summary .............................................................................................................. 43 5.0 Software Implementation and Development................................................................ 44 5.1 CLIENT................................................................................................................ 44 5.1.1 Hardware requirements .................................................................................... 44 5.1.2 Orange SPV E200 SmartPhone........................................................................ 44 6
5.1.3 Global Positioning System ............................................................................... 45 5.1.4 NAVMAN 4400............................................................................................... 45 5.1.5 EMTAC CRUX II ............................................................................................ 46 5.1.6 Developing applications for SmartPhones ....................................................... 47 5.1.7 Software to capture GPS signals ...................................................................... 48 5.1.8 Implementation of classes from PocketGPSlib in methods ............................. 49 5.1.9 Communication issues...................................................................................... 49 5.1.10 Main Application: Interface and Implementation ............................................ 50 5.1.11 Coordination Plotting and Graphical Programming......................................... 53 5.2. SERVER............................................................................................................... 54 5.2.1 PHP and MySQL.............................................................................................. 54 5.2.2 HTML............................................................................................................... 56 5.3 Client- and Server- side issues ............................................................................. 56 6.0 Evaluation and Results ................................................................................................. 58 6.1 The Final System with Development issues ........................................................ 58 6.2 System Limitations............................................................................................... 60 6.3 Market Survey ...................................................................................................... 61 6.4 Black Box Testing and Reverse Engineering....................................................... 62 6.5 Summary .............................................................................................................. 64 7.0 Future Work ................................................................................................................. 65 7.1 Extended Market Survey...................................................................................... 65 7.2 Navigation ............................................................................................................ 65 7.3 Group awareness .................................................................................................. 66 7.4 Introducing user modes ........................................................................................ 66 7.5 Utility ................................................................................................................... 67 7.6 User Interface ....................................................................................................... 68 7.7 Technology........................................................................................................... 68 7.10 Summary .............................................................................................................. 69 8.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 71 9.0 References .................................................................................................................... 73 APPENDICES.......................................................................................................................... 79 APPENDIX A .......................................................................................................................... 80 ANALYSIS OF SURVEY ....................................................................................................... 80 Analysis of Survey ................................................................................................................... 81 Section 1 Gender and Age................................................................................................ 82 Occupation ....................................................................................................................... 84 Section 2 Interest of Mobile Tourist Guide...................................................................... 86 Consider usage of Mobile Tourist Guide ......................................................................... 86 Preferred information on a Mobile Tourist Guide ........................................................... 89 Section 3 Group awareness .............................................................................................. 95 When you travel, do you travel in a group (more than one person)? ............................... 95 If you travel in a group, which type of group do you travel with?................................... 97 Section 4 Usage of the traditional Maps and Guidebooks ............................................. 101 When you travel, do you use maps or guidebooks? ....................................................... 107 Advantages and Disadvantages with traditional maps and guidebooks......................... 108 Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than the traditional?......................................... 111 Section 5 The Mobile Tourist Guide vs. Trustworthiness and Security ........................ 113 Section 6 Comments from the participants .................................................................... 115 APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................................ 118 CODE LISTING .................................................................................................................... 118
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1. Introduction 1.1
Background
The ever-growing tourism industry results in greater numbers of tourists from many nationalities visiting cities and places of interest. In order to inform and entertain these visitors in an efficient and personalised way, mobile tourist guides have been provided in some attractions. These portable devices can provide an audio description of what the tourist is looking at. However, the rapid development of Information Technology and Communications systems provide a potential for more sophisticated tools that can enhance the tourist’s experience. The purpose of this study is to explore the technical possibilities and to obtain feedback from a sample of today’s tourists as to the acceptability of such devices. Mobile Tourist Guides might be a revolution within tourist industry in the future, if all the pieces of the puzzle are put together in the correct pattern. The research conducted on this area started in the 1990’s and the development has naturally improved with technology becoming more sophisticated. Several different prototypes have been created that have touched on different concepts concerning mobile tourist guides, but most of the prototypes like Cyberguide (Abowd et al.,1997), GUIDE (Cheverst et al.,1999) and CRUMPET (Schmidt-Belz et al., 2003) focus only on the single user, while the Hummingbird- study focuses on people in groups, in other words, group-awareness. There are several different aspects of mobile tourist guides that can limit their functionality. Most of the prototypes that have been developed are developed on small handheld devices like PDA’s, tablet PC’s or SmartPhones. The size of the screen on handheld devices is small compared to desktop and laptop computers and the challenge is therefore to be able to fit all the information needed in the display available. The interface must be fitted to the needs of the user without forcing too much information into it. If a poorly developed interface is released, the user will lose overview of the information displayed and the product will not be 8
as interesting to the user as if the interface was well designed. Dunlop and Brewster (Dunlop and Brewster, 2002) also explain two other aspects: in addition to the one mentioned above, that can limit the usability of small handheld devices, poor audio interaction facilities limited input techniques. What also seem to become new challenges are the device’s contextawareness and also the networking facilities that are implemented in the device. Networking and context awareness are crucial to mobile tourist guides, so that the device’s location can be determined and also to provide the users’ preferences at all times.
1.2
Project Proposal
Personalised mobile tourist guides can help give individual tourists a better experience of a tourist location by giving each one an individually customised experience that matches personal preferences better than what can be provided by standard guidebooks. Mobile tourism systems, however, tend to support only individual tourists and give little support to groups. Groups have many special requirements. For example tourists on bus tours arrive together in a location and leave together. Some elements of the tour may be scripted (e.g. a prior arranged tour of an important site), while other elements are free form. There is considerable scope for mobile tourist guides to take into account group requirements, individual preferences and knowledge of the agenda to provide freedom to individuals where possible but still allow them to participate in group-activities when appropriate. This project will develop a mobile tourism guide for a major tourist location that better supports groups. The project will cover aspects such as development on palmtops, recommendation systems, timetable planning and location monitoring. [Dr. Mark Dunlop, University of Strathclyde]
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1.3
Aims for Project
The aims of this project are to provide a prototype of a mobile tourist guide, which focuses on the needs of tourists and especially tourists travelling in groups. As mentioned earlier, the majority of the prototypes that have been presented until now, have focused on the individual (i.e. Cyberguide (Abowd et al.,1997) and GUIDE (Cheverst et al.,1999) and not the group. This thesis has been inspired by research on Cyberguide, the Lancaster GUIDE and, concerning group awareness; the Hummingbird- study (Holmquist et al., 1998) has played a role. This project will aim towards giving the foundation of a group- aware mobile tourist guide that can put the focus on the user being able to explore tourist sights alone, while at the same time being able to follow a group. This will protect the individual’s interest and also provide the user with a group social opportunity. To detect and connect with fellow travel companions through smartphones will give the advantage regarding the issues of localizing persons of interest to the user to interact with and also to be able to spot lost persons/friends/family in a busy tourist spot.
1.4
Aim achievement
To achieve the aims for this thesis, a study of tourists’ behaviour was performed be required to examine how tourists move around when they travel in groups. Some might stick to the group, while others might want to explore on their own. To fulfil this requirement interviews were conducted be carried out targeting groups of tourists and also a number of questionnaires were handed out to investigate the opportunities in the market for mobile tourist guides. Questions were asked regarding the general requirements for the software and the device, like a mobile tourist guide and also what preferences the public have regarding the issues concerning what the software should contain. The investigation was be carried out on popular tourist sights in the Glasgow area, covering the city centre, the Burrell Collection and also the annual World Pipe Band Championship. The most suitable technology for this type of software development is the .NET Compact Framework from Microsoft. The Microsoft standards are open and ease the search for information and help. There are also well-developed help functions available and a 10
comprehensive API. Development and coding was carried out in Visual Studio .NET 2003 with the Microsoft SmartPhone 2003 SDK was imported and used. The programming language fitted best to these types of development tools is C#. To navigate in an outdoor environment, a Bluetooth GPS receiver was connected to the smartphone to feed the application with input data for processing. The final choice of GPS receiver was the CRUX II from Emtac. To host the prototype of the mobile tourist guide, an Orange SPV E200 was chosen. This smartphone is a part of the Windows Mobile- family and has the Microsoft SmartPhone 2003 operating system implemented. The Microsoft framework was adapted to the different parts included in this project and minimized the risk of compatibility problems between the development tools and the actual hardware, the SmartPhone.
1.5
Timescale
Week 1 - 3
Research, planning, explore equipment and start making questionnaires and prepare interviews.
Week 4- 5
Visit
tourist
spots
and
observe.
Questionnaires and interviews will be carried out. Week 6- 12
Develop the prototype, software and testing
Week 13- 16
Write up report and make sure everything is working.
Week 17
Deadline Monday 12.09.05
Fig. 1-1: Project timescale
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1.6
Chapter Outline
This thesis highlights the major issues concerning group- aware mobile tourist guides and contains the development and research of a group aware mobile tourist guide prototype. The thesis begins with the basic research around mobile tourist guides and further explains and illustrates hoe the prototype was built, why it was built this way and also what results that was an outcome of the research. A market survey was carried out to investigate how a part of the public would welcome such technology on the market, how people travel and what the preferences of implemented facilities would be. Chapter 2:
Research and Related Work
Chapter 2 gives an outline of the research that has been done on mobile tourist guides and a brief overview of the different prototypes that have been developed over the last years. This chapter also gives an introduction to research done on electronic maps and a discussion concerning context- awareness and context- aware computing. Chapter 3:
System Design and User Interface
Chapter 3 illustrates how the system was designed and what design decisions were taken. The chapter give an overview of the system and how the flow though the system is designed. Chapter 4:
Market Survey
Chapter 4 give a summary of the market survey that was carried out to investigate the interest around mobile tourist guides and also how people travel. Here the main results are discussed while the full analysis of the survey is given in the appendices. Chapter 5:
Software Implementation and Development
Chapter 5 describes how the system was implemented and illustrates the main point by using screen shots and snippets of code. A presentation of t hardware requirements will be given and also a discussion of the development issues. Chapter 6:
Evaluation and Results
Chapter 6 gives a discussion regarding the final system and possible limitations of the system. Issues that arose during development will be discussed and there has been given a brief summary of the results in the market survey. 12
Chapter 7:
Future Work
Chapter 7 give an introduction to ideas of future work and describes the possibilities of further development. A section regarding marketing suggestions is included and also suggestions on how to develop the mobile tourist guide in accordance with what the users would prefer. Chapter 8:
Conclusion
The conclusion gives a summary of the outcome of the thesis and how the development was experienced with learning outcomes. Chapter 9:
References
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2.0 Research and Related Work 2.1
Introduction
In the last decade computer technology has made a large jump forward and Moore’s law1 has been proven correct many times. The rapid development of mobile technology has created new markets for mobile applications and mobile phones have more or less become commonplace. In the mid 90’s the development of mobile technology turned from being simple mobile phones to becoming more and more powerful devices. Computers became smaller and PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants) started to appear on the market. This triggered new needs on the market and new needs were also created. The public has become increasingly more dependent on their mobile devices and researchers came up with new ideas to combine the powerful mobile technology with other common activities. Travelling and tourism are two important features in most people’s lives. In recent times researchers have worked on the issues regarding a possible replacement of the traditional tourist guidebooks and maps with electronic equivalents. Since the middle of the 1990’s several prototypes of context-aware mobile guides have been developed. Abowd and Dey (1999) state that context can be defined like this: “Context is any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and applications themselves.” If the word awareness is taken out of its context from the word context-awareness, it can be discovered if it is looked up in a dictionary, that when a user is aware of something, the user is aware how to use i.e. a device, which can be connected up to the word information. Korkeaaho (2000) means that context- awareness is the ability to use context information. Not all of the prototypes developed were meant for the tourist market, but they still have relevance when developing this kind of software on portable devices. Some of the focus on mobile guides has naturally been based on the use of electronic maps. The car industry has used electronic maps together with GPS (Global Positioning System) for a number of years already and there is also now available a quantity of detailed and well-designed maps online. 1
http://www.intel.com/technology/mooreslaw/ [Last accessed: 12.09.05]
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GPS2 was developed by the U.S. Department of Defence and was given public accessibility on President Bill Clinton’s order. GPS is now free for everyone to use and is built up of 24 satellites and their collaborating ground stations. The system is considered a worldwide radio navigation system that is using the infrastructure of the satellites. The satellites use what is called triangulation of signals, which means that the GPS receiver must “see” three satellites to be able to triangulate the signal and measure the distance to get an accurate location. The distance is measured by calculating the times the radio signals travel and together with the triangulation this give you a position that is accurate up to 50 cm. GPS can therefore be used to advantage of tourism and is now used and tested on PDA’s. It can also be used together with some models of mobile phones that in recent years have moved towards becoming pocket PC phone editions, also called SmartPhones. The different ideas and prototypes of mobile guides that have been researched cover a range of interesting areas and some also vaguely cover the area group-awareness. Group-awareness can be described as when the device used is aware of similar devices nearby with similar or identical software. One of the prototypes touching the issue of group-awareness is the Hummingbird project (Holmquist et al., 1998) Prototypes that cover other interesting areas are CRUMPET (Schmidt-Belz, [Last accessed: 12.09.05]), GUIDE (Cheverst et al., 1999), Cyberguide (Abowd et al.,1997) m-ToGUide (Chanan, 2004) and Taeneb CityGuide (Dunlop et al., 2004).
2.2
Context- aware Applications
Context-aware applications are naturally connected with computers, which are well known as powerful devices that can do complicated tasks in a matter of seconds. However, computers are machines and cannot be compared with the complexity of the human brain, which can think for itself without any necessary input. To illustrate: it is easy to imagine two human beings interacting with each other through speech and body language, the responses between the persons are dependent on how they act towards each other and automatically the body and brain will adapt to any situation that might occur. To make computers “think” on their own, applications are needed to process input from the device’s surrounding environment. This is what makes the device context-aware.
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http://www.trimble.com/gps/index.html [Last accessed: 12.09.05]
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What can be seen as most important is the fact that the application must comprehend and act fast enough when input is provided from the user to the device through sensors. Movements can be fast when mobile devices are being used, voices can be raised quickly if sound sensors are being used and the location can also change in rapid speed if driving or walking fast. It is then crucial that the application can keep up, or else the whole point of context- awareness is not of any use. To make systems context-aware, we need to take into consideration the different types of context-aware information is provided to the system. When information is provided to a system there must be something to catch the information to be able to make it adapt to the situation. For this we need sensors and different devices that can provide input to the system. Examples on such devices can be: GPS, temperature sensors, camera technology, physiological sensors etc. These devices provide low-level data to the system, which must interpret the data and make it understandable for the application using the data. A context-aware system is described by J. Pascoe (Pascoe, 1997) as a system that can extract, interpret and use context information and adapt it self to the current context and situation. What is also mentioned is that the real challenge for these kind of systems, lies in how complex it is to catch the data, to represent it and how to process it. There are three main areas that are important when discussing context- aware applications. Korkea- aho (2000) refers to the work of Schilit et al. and Pascoe, when the important features of applications are described. The main feature is the information and services available that must be presented to the user according to the context and situation they are in. This can include an application implemented in the device being used to tell the user where the nearest bus stop is and when the next bus will leave the stop. The second feature covers the automatic execution of an action when the correct context occurs. The application must then adapt to the environment. To take the example of the bus, a bit further, it can be imagined that when the user enters the bus, the credit card details will be available to the bus’s payment system. The ticket can then be paid without using money that has to be physically present.
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The third feature contains tagging of context- aware information. This is to provide information that can be retrieved at a later stage. To reuse the example about the bus, imagine that the user wants to catch the bus next day at that exact time. The information is tagged so the user can have a look at it later and plan when to leave i.e. home to get to the bus stop in time. These features cover what Pascoe (2000) describes as the capabilities of context- aware computing.
2.3
Electronic Maps
To be able to guide tourists with a mobile tourist guide, maps have to be implemented in the software. The users must have the possibility to have an overview of their whereabouts and to be able to understand where they are going next. There have been presented many different types of maps that have been used in the mobile tourist guides, without necessarily finding which type of map is the most suitable for this kind of devices. In the Tellmaris project mentioned by Kray and Laakso (2003) a combination between 2D and 3D maps were used. This particular type of map was tested on a limited number of people and the 3D map was the one that gave the best result. The 3D map gave the user the possibility to have two types of views while using the map, pedestrian view and birds-eye view. Pedestrian view illustrated the view on walking level, while the birds-eye view illustrated the feeling of flying or hovering over the ground. The issue raised here, was the problem with how far up the hovering should take place. If it took place too far up, there would be difficulties to keep track on the map, while too low would make the user lose overview over the map and feel disoriented. The ideal solution is not yet clear, but to hover approximately 10 meters above ground seem to be a good height which will give the user a good overview of the map and where to go (Brewster and Dunlop, 2004). Zipf and Hunolstein (Last accessed: 28.08.05) have introduced what they called task oriented maps. Task oriented maps take into consideration what kind of tasks the tourists normally perform and how the map can be adapted to suit the different tasks in a best possible way. The different tasks are divided into four main groups, which can be subdivided into new subgroups. Zipf and Hunolstein describe the two most prominent tasks a map performs as orientation and navigation, but as close followers, maps are also used as a tool for exploration and planning. The four distinct tasks a map-based mobile tourist guide must consider are therefore: 17
1. Thematic areas, navigation and way- finding, 2. Localisation and orientation, 3.
Proximity and events,
4. General information seeking and identification A typical navigation task would be to mark up a route, while localisation will take care of the question “where am I?” and it is also mentioned that for landmarks easy to spot, it is important to point them out on the map. When it comes to the issue of handling events, this will touch on the conditions of a specific location and what is happening when. This can concern opening times in museums, galleries and other venues that can be of interest for a tourist. According to Reichenbacher (Reichenbacher, 2003), to be able to achieve these different tasks, goals and plans must be separated from the user needed to achieve them. This table describe the High-level tasks and their subgroups and describes the typology of tasks in a map-based mobile tourist guide.
Table.2-1: Events and subtasks (Zipf and Hunolstein ,Last accessed: 28.08.05). This table describes what kind of sub-tasks and goals the different main tasks include, when it comes to using task-oriented maps. The majority of the mobile tourist guides on the market and in the research plan take advantage of maps. The main goal for a mobile tourist guide must be to guide the tourist in the correct direction and not lead anyone astray. However, to make the map and the software 18
follow the user in situ is a task that has been researched and tried out by several mobile tourist guides with variable success. The various guides focus on different areas and some of the larger research projects are CRUMPET (Scmidt-Belz et al, Last accessed: 12.09.05), GUIDE (Cheverst et al., 1999), Hummingbird (Brown and Weilenman, 1998), Cyberguide (Abowd et al., 1997) and the now commercial and market available m-ToGuide (Chanan, 2004).
2.4
The CyberGuide
The system that can be found closest to an ideal mobile tourist guide system is the Cyberguide (Abowd et al., 1997). The research on this system started in the early 1990’s and the research group developed over a year’s time the Cyberguide. The system was developed to be futuristic and the main idea was to continue the research and development later on. The two research groups, Future Computing Environments (FCE) Group within the College of Computing and the Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU Center) at Georgia Institute of Technology, developed prototypes for indoor and outdoor usage. Their long-term goal was to develop a system that identifies where the tourist is and can predict any answer he/she might ask about the things he or she are looking at. The possibility of interaction with the environment and fellow tourists is also an opportunity the Cyberguide would ideally offer to its users. The research groups’ short-term goal was to prototype different versions of the Cyberguide on comercially available equipment, such as PDAs and pen-based PCs. The equpiment had a large screen for visualisation of the surrondings using maps and the research groups also aimed towards locating the current position of the unit and by that, also locate the user of the unit. The Cyberguide is divided into four main sections of design: the cartographer which is a map component; the librarian that provides the information about the different sights; the navigator that locates the device and the tourist; and last the messenger that allows the tourist to interact by sending and receiving messages like an instant messaging service. These sections are used both in the outdoor and the indoor prototype. The design of the Cyberguide’s interface is without colours. The reason for is that the PDAs were unlike those not like their known today, with high resolutiuon screens. The screen had a
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resonable size, but could move towards being too big when it came to using the larger penbased PCs. The indoor prototype used a simple map to display the facilities in a laboratory where the testing of the prototypes were carried out. The device used for the prototypes was an Apple MessagePad and an icon is indicating where the user is situated on the map. To get the localisation working, the Apple MessagePad was equipped with an IR receiver and a microcontroller. TV remote controls where hanging from the ceiling beaming out a specific pattern for the PDA to recieve. In the Cyberguide survey, the researchers stated that the microcontroller technology was too expensive for large-scale usage, and therefor had to be inventive to make this more available for the market. The Appletalk protocol was used to establish the possibility of sending and receiving emails and HTML documents. This was implemented to improve interaction with the environment. To get information about the specific sights in the laboratory, the user could click on one of the stars on the map indicating a tourist attraction in the lab. The system would display what the sight was about and any needed information. Two implementations provided this: one hard-coded version with quick response time; and one using Newton files to store information. The same structure was used for the outdoor system, but the system was extended and a GPS unit was attached to the Apple MessagePad to send its location to the satellites. The range on this is larger than the indoor system and different types of maps could be implemented (i.e. vector-based maps). The GPS technology was used because the number of satellites providing support to GPS services is increasing and it is the only technology available for this purpose. The Cyberguide is a project that has done empirical research on context aware computing, but there are certain concepts their research has not gone into. When tourists are travelling, most of the time they travel in groups and this is an issue that the Cyberguide has not covered. The “Buddy finder” mentioned by Hunolstein and Zipf (Hunolstein and Zipf, last accessed 28.08.05) can be an interesting feature in mobile tourism guides. Another research group that looked into systems that can be categorised as group- aware, is “The Hummingbird-study” (Brown and Weilenman)(Holmquist et al.). 20
2.5
The Hummingbird- study
This research was conducted by Brown and Weilenman (1998), and the Hummingbirds were prototypes tried out in the Norwegian Alps by a group of eight ski instructors. The device would hum when fellow instructors were located within less than 100 metres and their name would pop up on the screen. The negative part of this study was that the instructors kept missing the humming from the hummingbird, because of their focus on skiing and with that, a bit of the reason for using such a device disappeared. This did not mean that the hummingbird was completely useless, because it was frequently brought out in the skiing slopes to gather the group for lunch and meetings. The hummingbird was also tested on the Roskilde festival in Denmark. This study was carried by Holmquist, Wigström and Falk (Holmquist et al), and the device scanned the area for similar devices. This made it easier for the group to meet, since the festival is an outdoor rock festival with approximately 80,000 visitors. The hummingbird is taking advantage of wireless communication and its range varies between 20 and 200 metres. The prototype has a processor with some RAM, an LCD screen, a miniature speaker and a radio transreceiver to cover the wireless communication. The range of the radio transreceiver depends on external conditions and how the antenna is configured (Holmquist, 1998). The design of the hummingbird is set to be small and portable, and the researchers wanted it to “melt into the background” and when it was desired, the device could be brought into attention. The design is related to principles mentioned by Weiser and Brown (Weiser and Brown) about calm technology and ambient media mentioned by Ishii and Ullmer (Ishii and Ullmer, 1997). The hummingbird did not use any map functionality, but made awareness between friends possible when they where located in big crowds. A negative issue with this was that even though the device was humming and indicating that someone with the same device was close, the person could not be located and if the venue was crowded it would be impossible to spot the person in the crowd as well.
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Fig.2-1: The Hummingbird prototype (Holmquist, 1998)
2.6
CRUMPET and the Lancaster GUIDE
CRUMPET (Scmidt-Belz et al,2003) and GUIDE (Cheverst et al,) are two well developed mobile tourism guide systems. They are using the basic research from Cyberguide, but with different variations of PDAs and technologies. GPS is widely used, but the technology used in the guides is different. CRUMPET is using a diverse set of technologies, while GUIDE is using high-speed wireless network. The two systems have one issue in common which is that they both focus more on personalisation and have local aware services. CRUMPET is a EU fonded international collaboration developed by Schmidt-Belz, Laamanen, Poslad and Zipf (Scmidt-Belz et al,2003). The focus is more set on the outdoor environment and the technology used is diverse. The technology available when CRUMPET was developed (year 1999-2000) showed that the delay that appeared while using seamless roaming could be too long. Seamless roaming is described by Schmidt-Belz, Laukkanen, Laamanen, Veríssimo, Zipf, Aras and Poslad (Schmidt-Belz et al., ) as a collection of network and Mobile Node side techniques and networking design techniques. The aim is to provide an uninterrupted service and also network connectivity. This is provided regardless of handovers between the different wireless access networks. The design is more directed towards the personal interests of the tourist and can provide services that are directly aimed towards the single individual. CRUMPET has not focused on any research directed towards group travels or similar matters. GUIDE is a system developed by Davies, Cheverst, Mitchell and Efrat from Lancaster University, UK, and University of Tucson, Arizona (Davies et al.). The work started in 1997 22
and the CyberGuide was the main inspiration for this research. The project aimed at developing a context sensitive tourguide for the Lancaster area. The tourguide is dynamic and the technology used for this was a tablet PC with an implemented high speed wireless network card. The screen was 800 x 600 which is large for a mobile tourguide. The only negative issue with this size is that the tablet PC from Fujitsui is rather big and the weight is 850 grams. This kind of weight might seem incignificant in the beginning, but after a period of walking and sightseeing, it can become a heavy burden to carry around in the city of Lancaster. The positive part of having a large screen is that the HTML pages used in the guide is clearly set out and easy to understand. The GUIDE is not using GPS in its system. The reason for this is because of the triangulation problem and that in cities it is not always possible to be able to “see” three satellites at once.
2.7
m-ToGuide
This project is a relatively new project, published in 2004 by Chanan Gabay (Gabay, 2004). This system uses the existing GSM/GPRS mobile phone network and the Internet as the base of the system and it is materialised on a mobile and handheld Motorola terminal. M-ToGuide and also CRUMPET, as mentioned above, is supported by the Information Society Technologies (IST) Fifth Framework Program of the European Commission and targets the European tourist market. The handheld device is used to exchange information between the user and the system and this service is a location-based service that provides information that is of current interest for the user. The service is not only location- based, but also personalised to tailor the user through their personal profiles. The testing of the system was carried out in three different European cities and the system can according to the producer and provider, serve the individual user with up to date information, as mentioned, but also a possibility to buy tickets for attractions and similar matters. However, after the testing of the system was performed, 70% of the users wanted to use it again, but there had to be made improvements on the communication and infrastructure. The GPRS and the GPS was not accurate enough and in narrow streets the well- known triangulation problem for GPS appeared. The developers of the m-ToGuide do think that these problems will be improved with the introduction of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and AGPS (Assisted GPS). UMTS is today maybe more well known as 3G and it is still quite a way before it is available for everyone. Assisted GPS is a 23
new collaboration between GPS and mobile phones, and can be described as a variant of GPS used in mobile phones. When you use a standard GPS receiver, the signals are triangulated between three satellites, which have to be in sight of the receiver. However when AGPS is used, the mobile base station will do the calculations from the satellites for the user and the only thing the user then needs, is a signal on the mobile phone. This technology will then be able to bypass the triangulation problem, which is the number one problem to limit the traditional GPS technology.
2.8
Conclusion
According to the research that has been done during the last decade on mobile tourist guides, it has been discovered that there is a large potential for these kinds of context- aware applications and devices. Mobile phones, SmartPhones and PDA’s might merge together in the future as the standard mobile phones are becoming more advanced every year and this will open the market even more for the new technology. So far it is the m-ToGuide that has come the closest to the commercial market, but there are still improvements to be made and problems to solve. The majority of the guides available within research have focused on the individual tourist. Of the prototypes mentioned above, only the Hummingbird-study focused on the group and on group- awareness. The fact that most people travel in groups has not been taken into consideration in any of the other guides. The Hummingbird’s weakness was however the lack of maps implemented in the software and the problems related to locating the rest of the group in crowded areas. If maps following Reichenbacher’s standards (Reichenbacher, 2003) had been implemented in this prototype the technology would have taken a large step forward towards more group-aware applications.
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3.0 System Design and User Interface This chapter will describe how the Mobile Tourist Guide is designed and how the users interface is developed according to different design principles described in the section concerning initial design. The flow of data through the system will be investigated together with how the devices communicate and the algorithms used. A brief description of the GPS format, concerning latitude and longitude will also be given, together with a discussion around the limitations of the design.
3.1
Initial Design
The initial design will give a summary of the overall design of the Mobile Tourist Guide system, how the user interface of the system is built and last what really matters in design of mobile systems. There are certain issues that must be taken into consideration concerning designing for mobile environments and the challenges of designing for small screens are larger than designing for normal sized screens, like a desktop screen.
3.1.1 Pocket PC v. SmartPhone There are three types of devices that use the .NET Compact Framework; Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone edition and Smartphones, where the Smartphone is the device with the smallest screen size, as illustrated below.
Fig.3-1: Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone edition and SmartPhone (Lee, 2004)
25
The lack of space when designing for smartphones is crucial to design. When it comes to designing in .NET Compact Framework, it provides the developer with several different tools for grouping and structuring data. Microsoft has narrowed down functionalities in the .NET Compact Framework so it would suit the needs of mobile systems and this is narrowed down even further when the Smartphone 2003 SDK is installed. To develop to for smartphones are slightly different to developing for Pocket PCs, not only are the tools available reduced, but also the main reason is the difference of form between the devices. Pocket PC devices have touch sensitive screens to handle any input from the user, while the Smartphone are dependent on two softkeys, mapped to the fixed keyboard, to provide with necessary input and also to replace buttons and feature that softkey entry can not handle.
Fig.3-2: Smartphone input controls
3.1.2 Design Requirements Designing for mobile systems requires knowledge around how to structure the information implemented in the user interface. It must be easy to understand for the user, well-structured and not too much information gathered on the screen at the same time. This is especially important for smartphones due to their small screen and their limited input possibilities. To design usable systems for smartphones is different from normal webdesign, but the same principles can be used just with a few logic alterations. Four basic design rules can be used to structure the design of both web design and design in general, also including mobile systems. The main task is to design for maximum usability where the goal is to get the user to interact as much as possible. To be able to fulfil this aim, there must be a general understanding of the system. The user must be able understand and interpret the system the correct way without
26
experiencing any larger problems. A good way to make understanding easier is to use familiar patterns and take advantage of standards that are already familiar to the user. (Dunlop, 2005) For the user to be able to fully take advantage of a system and find it easy to use, the design of the user interface on the smartphone must be consistent. It is important to group information that is similar and connected to each other and also make the system behave in a consistent way through all phases of usage. Due to the smartphone’s small sized screen, a good and simple design following the above rules is important.
3.2
Specified Design
This section will give a presentation of the specified design of the Mobile Tourist Guide, which will contain an overview of the information/data flow through the system and how the user interface is designed. The algorithms used in the code will be presented and also what limitations here can be in the user interface.
3.2.1 Specification The Mobile Tourist Guide will assist individual tourists and tourists travelling in groups, to navigate in a city environment using a Smartphone and a Bluetooth GPS receiver. The communication between the devices goes via GPS to get information and coordinates from the satellites and GPRS is used to download necessary information onto the smartphone from the Internet. The system will fulfil the user’s requirements, which means it is simple to get an overview over how to use the functions implemented in the system. Options given to the user is predictable in the terms that the user will understand what to do next and also understand what will be displayed on the screen. Communication is important must flow in “real time” to be able to serve the purpose of the system. GPS signals must be processed and converted into x and y coordinates to be fitted on to the map. A conversion algorithm implemented in the software does the conversion of the GPS input. This will eventually give a result that can plot the current available positions on the map. In according to the requirements of the system a database will handle the storage of coordinates and data.
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3.2.2 System Communication Design The Mobile Tourist Guide is dependent on communication that can provide the user with information that is of current value. The flow of communication between the client and the server side is crucial and consists of the device and GPS, which is the client side of the system, the MySQL database that hosts the server side and the connection between them over the Internet using GPRS. The GPS unit will also be connected to give exact positions.
Fig.3-3: Communication within Mobile Tourist Guide
3.2.3 GPS: Latitude and Longitude GPS satellites will provide the Bluetooth GPS receiver with information by using triangulation of signals and in this case only time, latitude and longitude are necessary. This information will eventually be converted into the coordinates that are required for the system. The time given by the GPS is in GMT (Greenwich Middle Time), initializes the longitude that runs through Greenwich in England. The longitude can be described as the measurement taken from the Prime Meridian, which is Greenwich, as mentioned above. The positive values runs eastbound and the negative values runs westbound. However, the longitude is
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accompanied by the latitude, which can be described as the measurement calculated from the equator where the positive values points north and the negative values points south.
Fig.3-4: Illustration Latitude and Longitude3 All the coordinates are given in degrees and to convert it from degrees in the format: degrees : minutes : seconds to the format of degrees that are familiar, an easy algorithm is used to calculate it. Latitude can be converted into degrees by using the common knowledge concerning hours and seconds. There are 60 seconds in 1 minute and another variable that might not be that familiar, is 60 minutes being 1 degree. Algorithm calculating Latitude and Longitude: Latitude in Degrees = (degrees + min * (degree/60 min)+ sec * (1 min/60 sec)) When the signal from GPS is received, the GPS receiver will talk to the smartphone via Bluetooth. The device will process the input by using C# and the application will load a server - side web page that contains information about the current users in the system and their coordinates. This page will be downloaded by the smartphone and processed so the information on the web page can be processed and converted into map-coordinates. To download information from the Internet, GPRS will be used. GPRS is short for General Packet Radio System and are today the most used type of wireless mobile communication for 3
http://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov/teacher/latlonarchive.html [Last Accessed: 11.11.05]
29
Internet connection. GPRS is implemented in the smartphone by default and is today the best opportunity regarding Internet access on mobile phones and Smartphones.
3.2.4 Software and User Interface Design The software is developed to suit the user as good as possible and must be clearly designed following the standard design rules. Having a consistent user interface is important and the user must understand what he or she should do next without having to think or hesitate too much. The initial page of the Mobile Tourist Guide has its colour theme sat to royal blue. This colour was chosen because it is supposed to signalise trust and authority, which is an important feature for the user.
Fig.3-5: Start page
Fig.3-6: Menu structure
Fig.3-7: Get Map
The menus are built up so the user can easily understand what to do and it has four options: GetMap, Get Coordinates, Help and About. The first two options are the main tasks on the menu; option 1 loads the map, while option 2 generates a list of coordinates that are available on the server side web page. On the illustration of the GetMap function to the far right, a small ellipse is visible in the left hand corner. This ellipse illustrates the user and is situated down in the left corner to illustrate that coordinates have been marked off on the canvas. However, what seemed to be the problem were the ellipsoids appearing underneath the map. This problem will be further discussed in implementation of the software where a possible solution to the issue will also be presented.
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3.2.5 Activity Diagram The activity diagram illustrates the different activities in the Mobile Tourist Guide. The flow of the system is given and this illustrates what options are available for the user.
Fig.3-8: Activity Diagram illustrating the flow of the system
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3.2.6 Conversion algorithm An algorithm to convert the coordinates, latitude and longitude, into map- coordinates was developed. The algorithm uses simple arithmetic to scale the coordinates and according to the grids in on the map the GPS coordinates can be converted into pixels on the map. Conversion algorithms:
xp = (
lat p − lat1 lat2 − lat1
) ∗ x2
yp = (
long p − long1 long 2 − long1
) ∗ y2
These two algorithms specify two points marked out on a map. Xp illustrates the point x on the map and is calculated from the latitude, latp. Yp illustrates the point y on the map and is calculated from the longitude, longp. To calculate Xp , the latitude situated as a point on the map, latp, is subtracted from the initial latitude on the x-axis. The subtraction is thereafter divided on the subtraction between the latitude situated in the right hand side corner, lat2, and the latitude situated in the lower left hand corner. This sum is then multiplied with x2 and the product from this will be the newly calculated x coordinate, xp. This algorithm has now calculated how far left or right the xp is situated. To find the location of the y coordinate, the same algorithm is run and the “height” of the coordinate is found. This settles the how high or low the coordinate is pinpointed on the map and the coordinates haven been converted from latitude and longitude to coordinates fitted on a map.
Fig.3-9: Illustrating coordinates on the map
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3.2.7 Design of MySQL Database The database consists of one table called GUIDE, which contains 4 rows, G_username, X_coord, Y_coord and G_TimeDate. In this table the user’s name is stored together with the current coordinates and the time and date of the last entry of the user. The database design is simple, because the data must be easy and quick to recover. The screenshot below illustrates the GUIDE table and the tool used for administration is phpMyAdmin. This tool was chosen because it would make the handling of the table easier.
Fig. 3-10: MySQL database illustrating the GUIDE table The table can be extended for future development and contain more rows that store time. This can be used for “ghosting” users. “Ghosting” can be described as when the user is at a current position at a certain time and is display with a clear coloured dot on the screen. After the user has left the location and been away for maybe half an hour, the colour of the dot fades away and the user can at the same time appear at other locations. This phenomenon can be useful to other members in the group if route the “ghost” user is re-used by new users.
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3.2.8 Design constraints The design of the Mobile Tourist Guide system must be simple in order to make the user understand and predict how to use the system and to fully take advantage of the user interface. The client side of the system, including the hardware and the application itself, is designed as the largest part of the system. The server side must be limited due to the communication and the limitations that GPRS introduce to the system. It is important that the system is not slow and takes too long to download data, due to the fact that if the system is slow it will defeat its purpose and locations might not be current anymore. The design of the user interface has limitations because of the small-sized screens smartphones have. This will challenge the developer who designs the system and it is important that the information on the screen is not exaggerated. This will confuse the user and the end product will not be used the way it was meant to be. Functions that are hard to locate will be overlooked and the overall impression of the system will fall. Other constraints that were experienced in designing the system were the limitations that were introduced when installing the Smartphone 2003 SDK, which will be discussed in a later chapter. The Smartphone 2003 SDK limits the input methods compared to Pocket PCs and functions like buttons and tabs were disabled. Functions that are not available in the .NET Compact Framework at all are the BackgroundImage- method, which entitles the developer to put an image in the background as a canvas. This was a method that could have been very useful regarding drawing the coordinates on top of the map and not underneath it, like mentioned above.
34
3.2.9 Use cases The use case diagrams illustrate a unit of functionality in the system and shows how the different parts of the system interact with each other.
Fig.3-11: Use case diagram for Mobile Tourist Guide
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4.0 Market Survey A survey was carried out to investigate the conditions and opinions around how people would welcome a Mobile Tourist Guide on the market.. The survey included questionnaires that were handed out during the busiest tourist season in Glasgow. The target groups were mainly tourists and preferably tourists travelling in groups, such as bus tours and other similar forms of travel. The questionnaires were distributed during the weeks of the World Pipe Band Championships 2005. This is an annual event held in Glasgow and 230 bands participate with 8000 pipers and drummers coming from far and near. This was a golden opportunity to investigate people travelling in groups and most of the questionnaires were handed out on George Square, on the See-Glasgow buses, a few were handed out on the ISEC 4conference held at the University of Strathclyde in early August and at the Burrell- collection in Pollock Country Park. The questionnaires were handed out by MSc- students at the University of Strathclyde and by staff on the See-Glasgow buses. 100 questionnaires were handed out and the division between the genders were 53 % of the participants were male and 47 % female. Most of the answers are analysed on the basis of genders to find differences in opinions between the sexes and also a joint analysis to find the trends that are similar for both male and female. Also the age of the participants has been taken into consideration, due to the topic investigated being “modern” and there could be differences in opinion between the age groups. An example to this is that elder people might “fear” the new-coming technology and younger people might have different interests from the elderly as to what a mobile tourist guide should contain. The questionnaire is divided into 13 different questions where the first three are demographic questions, which concerns gender, age and occupation (Appendix A, Section 1). However, gender and age are the most weighted questions, because occupation can merely reflect education and social status, which can be mirrored in how the questions are answered. The next two questions are reflecting the respondents’ interest in general in the system (Appendix A, Section 2). How many would consider using the system if it became available and also
4
Inclusive and Supporting Education Congress: http://www.isec2005.org.uk/ [Last accessed: 12.09.05]
36
what they would like the system to contain. Two of the next questions are more aimed towards group-awareness and how many of the participants travel in groups and what type of groups they travel in (Appendix A, Section 3). The next questions concern the usage of maps and guidebooks, and also the advantages and disadvantages of traditional maps and guidebooks over the new technology that includes the electronic versions (Appendix A, Section 4). Questions regarding the extent to which a mobile tourist guide would be trusted are also taken into consideration. If the answer to the question considering trust is negative, the reason for the negative answer is then required. This is to be able to pick up any opinions regarding security and protection of personal space and also if the software and hardware can be trustworthy when it comes to technical breakdowns and similar issues. The last question is dedicated to the participant’s own opinions and can here write down some comments regarding either the survey or anything else that might spring to the participant’s mind. This question is particularly useful when it comes to mentioning any questions and/or doubts the participant can have about the system. An example can be: “How will the system work indoors?”
4.1
Gender and Age
Concerning the demographic questions, gender and age are investigated together and represents how many males and females that have participated in the survey and how well the different groups of age are represented. Age division between MALE and FEMALE participants
Age %
100 % 90 % 80 % 70 % 60 % 50 % 40 % 30 % 20 % 10 % 0%
13 %
7
17,02 %
8
26 %
14
23,40 %
11
11,32 %
6
8,51 %
4
28 %
15
21,27 %
10
21 % 0%
11 0
23,40 %
11
6,40 %
3
MALE %
Number of FEMALE % Number of responses responses
37
55+ 46-55 36-45 26-35 18-25 18
18-25
26-35
36-45
46-55
55+
No Answer %
0
0
2
0
1
0
NO%
0
5
7
0
2
4
YES %
3
17
16
9
22
11
Age
Fig.4-2: Consider use of Mobile Tourist Guide, MALE + FEMALE When the whole group of male and female participants are investigated together, the diagram above clearly states that the majority are positive to usage of a Mobile Tourist Guide. A result that could be regarded as surprising is the fact that the age group 26 – 35 are least interested in the technology and also have the highest percentage of people choosing not to answer the question. Normally this group would be considered a group that are updated on what is going on technology wise, but it seems here that this group is critical and sceptic to the use of
39
Mobile Tourist Guides. The reason for this is unclear, but it can be that the scale and size of the survey is too small and do not show the real picture of the situation. The overall positive answer from the group 36 – 45 can come from the low participation in this group with only 9 people in total. However, this group can be seen as stronger economically than the previous group and therefore be more positive to try new technology, regardless of the price on the device and the software. The details concerning the separate evaluation of male and female participants can be found in Appendix A, Section 2.
4.4
Preferred facilities on the Mobile Tourist Guide
To map what people would like a mobile tourist guide to contain is something that can be found interesting when you want to investigate where to focus your research and development. Fifteen categories were discovered and charts were created concerning which category could be weighted as the most popular. Two charts were created, one for male and one for the female part of the participants. This made it easier to find any difference in preference between the genders. In some of the categories there is almost no interest at all, but they were quite interesting and worth a mention. Other categories have a high level of interest and are very important to tourists if you consider the results of the survey. The weighting of these results has been done on the basis of how frequent the specific category was mentioned by the participants. After mapping the different categories, the charts mentioned above were created and used as a ranking system where the first is the most popular category and the last category considered the least popular. The table on the next page illustrates the ranking of the different preferences.
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CHART MALE 1
Attractions and interesting sights
2
Maps
3
Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants
4
Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times)
5
Events/Event locations and times
6
Accommodation (including price details)
7
Price aware places to visit
8
Shopping
9
History of buildings, places and people
10
Shared between: Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums) General info about the city
11
Shared between: Opening hours Road info/accidents/incidents
12
What’s near
13
Child friendly activities and child adapted software (FREQUENCY = 0) CHART FEMALE
1
Shared between: Maps Attractions and interesting sights Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants
2
Shared between: Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times) Events/Event locations and times
3
Accommodation (including price details)
4
Shared between: Shopping Opening hours History of buildings, places and people Price aware places to visit Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums)
5 6
General info about the city Shared between: Road info/accidents/incidents Child friendly activities and child adapted software
7
What’s near
Table 4-1: Preferred facilities on Mobile Tourist Guide
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Considering the two tables above, they illustrate that the ranking of the different categories are quite similar, except that the female chart has more equally divided frequencies between the different choices. This means that the male part of the participants is more aware and certain of what they would prefer to be implemented in a Mobile Tourist Guide. This can again be placed in coherence with the slightly smaller interest women show for the new technology compared to men. The category that concerns children are not mentioned at all amongst the male part while the female part have mentioned it, but it is not highly ranked on the chart. Overall it is “Maps”, “Attractions and interesting sights” and “Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants” that are the top three categories even though it is slightly more vague and evenly chosen in the female part of participants. There were a few other suggestions mentioned that were not mentioned by many, but could still be interesting to take in to consideration. A participant of the female part of the survey suggested that it could be useful to have the nearest police station, hospital and doctor displayed on the mobile tourist guide as an option, if any unexpected incident happened and emergency care needed. This could be a useful addition to the mobile tourist guide and can also make users feel more secure. Countryside walking and cycle tracks are also interesting suggestions which can help the mobile tourist guide to broaden and catch more users that are interested in more than just experiencing “city life”.
4.5
Group Awareness and Group travelling
This part of the questionnaire considers what can maybe be called the “un-investigated” part of the research on mobile tourist guides. Research that has already been done on this issue have focused more on the individual user, while in this case it is of interest to map how many participants travel in groups and what type of group they travel in. The genders are analysed separate and joint, so differences or similarities can be spotted. This diagram beneath, explains how often the participants travel in groups.
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Frequency of grouptravels MALE & FEMALE 100 % 80 % 60 %
Always
%
Often
40 %
Sometimes Never
20 % 0%
Always
FE MA 18 18-25
26-35
36-45
46-55
55+
Occupation Number of responses NONE NONE Student 7 Software Engineer 1 Sales/ PR 2 Driver 1 Tiler 1 Chef 1 IT Professional 1 Environment Health Safety Responsible 1 Joiner 2 Unit Assistant 1 State Manager 1 Student 2 Youth/Social Worker 2 Architect 1 WorkShop Manager 1 IT SalesConsultant 1 Executive Director 1 Lawyer 1 Manager 1 E-commerce Consultant 1 Vacationer 1 No Answer 1 VP,Marketing 1 Civil Servant 1 Engineer 1 Professor 1 Crane Driver 1 Teacher 1 Business 1 Fitter 1 A/C Director 1 Technician 1 Gas Fitter 1 Sculptor 1 No Answer 1 Retired 3 Teacher 1 Professor 1 Administration Officer Education 1 No Answer 1
90
For females the stereotypic female professions like nurse and care worker are occurring together with a few housewives. However, what seems to be the trend is that only the women in the age group 55+ that are housewives. This can give us a small insight in the homogenous development there are when it comes to equality between the sexes on the job market. Five females decided not to answer the question concerning their occupation and this counts for 10,6% of the total amount of participants.
Age >18 18-25 26-35
36-45
46-55
55+
Occupation Student Student Worker Traveller/Lawyer Teacher Student Social Worker Realestate No Answer Teacher Physical Theraphist No Answer Care Worker Bank Manager Teacher Civil Servant Assistant director administration Operations Manager Nurses Aid Advocacy Project Coordinator Administrator No Answer Retired Teacher Housewife No Answer
Number of responses 3 10 1 1 5 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 3 1
The females have some larger concentrations around the occupations, students and teachers. Girls/Women in the age group 18-25 and also the younger girls under 18, are mostly students. A trend that has developed over the later years in western countries, is that girls are more interested in taking higher education than men.
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Section 2 Interest of Mobile Tourist Guide Section 2 are more considered about the general information about how people would welcome the mobile tourist guide on the market if it became available and also what could be interesting and preferable by the public to implement in the software.
Consider usage of Mobile Tourist Guide The participants are also in this section divided into two categories decided by their gender. Consider use of Mobile Tourist Guide MALE 100 % 80 % 60 % 40 %
No Answer % NO%
20 % 0%
YES % MALE
>18
18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55
55+
No Answer %
0
0
1,9
0
1,9
0
NO%
0
1,9
5,7
0
1,9
0
YES %
0
18,7
20,7
11,3
22,6
13,2
Out of 53 males, 46 would consider to use the mobile tourist guide. That represents 86,8 % of the males represented in the survey. 9,4 % were negative to the use of the guide and 3,8 % decided not to answer the question. The diagram represents the overall opinion and it clearly states that most of the men would like to use the system.
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Consider use of Mobile Tourist Guide FEMALE 100 % 80 % %
60 % 40 % 20 % 0%
No Answer % NO% YES %
>18
1825
2635
3645
0
0
1,9
0
4655+ 55 0
No Answer % NO% YES %
0
0 8,5 10,6 0 1,9 8,5 6,3 14,9 10,6 8,5 21,3 8,5 Age
Out of 47 females, 33 would consider to use a mobile tourist guide. This number represents 70,2 % of the females participating in the survey. 14 out of 47 women are negative to the usage of such a system. This counts for 29,8 % of the females participating in the survey and this is considerable higher than the male percentage. All the females in the survey answered this question.
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Consider use of Mobile Tourist Guide MALE + FEMALE 100 % 80 % %
60 % 40 % 20 % 0%
No Answer % NO% YES %
>18
1825
2635
3645
4655+ 55
0 0
0 5
2 7
0 0
1 2
0 4
3
17
16
9
22
11
No Answer % NO% YES %
Age The joint diagram covering both male and female, shows that the majority is positive to the use of the mobile tourist guide. However, the diagram shows that it is actually the age group 26 –35 that are most sceptical to the new technology. The percentage here is higher both in the negative direction and this group has also the highest percentage in not answering the question. This result is surprising, since you would think that the people in this age would be open to new technology and have insight and knowledge about some of the technology available on the market.
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Preferred information on a Mobile Tourist Guide To map what people would like a mobile tourist guide to contain is something that can be found interesting when you want to investigate where to focus your research and development. 15 categories were discovered and charts were created concerning which category could be weighted as the most popular. Two charts were created, one for male and one for the female part of the participants. This makes it easier to find any difference in preference between the male and the female participants. Some of the categories are there almost no interest for at all, but they were quite interesting and worth to mention. Other categories have a heavy interest rate and are very important to tourists if you consider what the survey can show. The weighting of these results has been done on the basis of how frequent the specific category was mentioned by the participants. After mapping the different categories, the charts mentioned above were created and used as a ranking system where the first is the most popular category and the last category considered the least popular. 11 out of 53 of the male participants decided not to answer the question. This represents 20,6% of the total number of male participants. For the females, 18 out of 47 chose to not answer the question. This represents a slightly higher percentage than then male part, counting 38,3 %. According to the table created to get overview over the different categories and the frequency the different categories occurred, these charts were developed:
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CHART MALE 1
Attractions and interesting sights
2
Maps
3
Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants
4
Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times)
5
Events/Event locations and times
6
Accommodation (including price details)
7
Price aware places to visit
8
Shopping
9
History of buildings, places and people
10
Shared between: Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums) General info about the city
11
Shared between: Opening hours Road info/accidents/incidents
12
What’s near
13
Child friendly activities and child adapted software (FREQUENCY = 0) CHART FEMALE
1
Shared between: Maps Attractions and interesting sights Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants
2
Shared between: Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times) Events/Event locations and times
3
Accommodation (including price details)
4
Shared between: Shopping Opening hours History of buildings, places and people Price aware places to visit Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums)
5 6
General info about the city Shared between: Road info/accidents/incidents Child friendly activities and child adapted software
7
What’s near
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After investigating the charts, it is discovered that the male part of the survey is more distinct and aware of what they would like a mobile tourist guide to contain. The female part has their opinions more equally divided between the categories. A part from this distinct difference the ranking of the categories seem quite similar. The categories 1 to 3 for the males are one joint category for the females. These categories share the 1st place in the female chart as well as they are 1st to 3rd place in the male chart. The 4th and 5th place in the male chart are sharing 2nd place in the female chart and the 3rd and 4th place for females represents 6th place to 9th place for males. This is where the charts start to move in different directions. The further down on the charts we get, we can see that the categories “Culture” and “General information about the city” on the male chart are situated on a shared 10th place. On the female chart these two categories are in 4th and 5th place. The category concerning children and child adapted software is not represented at all in the male chart and end therefore on 13th place with a frequency of zero. For women children may seem as a greater concern and share a 6th place together with the category “Road information, accidents and incidents”. This result is surprisingly higher ranked in the female chart than in the male chart. You would think that this category would be more interesting for the male participants of the survey, if you are to follow the old fashion beliefs concerning men and their interest for cars and driving. However, for males this category scores quite low and shares 11th place with the category,” Opening hours”. This particular category is more interesting for women and is placed on a 4th place together with “Shopping” amongst others. The category “What’s near” is a category that scores very low in both charts and is on the last place for females and has the lowest frequency after the category concerning children in the male chart. If the age groups are further investigated, for the male participants the youngest age group, 18–25 years old, there are 5 categories that are no0t mentioned at all (Road info/accidents/incidents, General info about the city, Culture, What’s near and Child friendly activities and child adapted software). However, the highest concentration of frequencies occurs around the categories: Maps, Information about public transport, Events/Event locations and Attractions and interesting sights. This result is surprising, since you might 97
think that most young people in that group of age would be more interested in bars and clubbing and also where to find inexpensive places to go. Maps and information about public transport is what is ranked highest and we can see the same trend in the female group. However, for females the ranking is more equal between the most popular categories and bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants is included in 1st place for the female participants. The next age group that shows some interesting results are the age group, males between 2635 year old. In this group the trend anticipated in the younger group is more distinct and this group are more interested in eating, drinking and going out. This category has the highest frequency, but is closely followed by the category “Attractions and interesting sights”. The categories that have the second highest frequency are “Maps” and “Events/Event locations and times”. Three categories are not represented at all in this group of age: “Opening hours”, “What’s near” and “Child friendly activities and child adapted software”. The last category mentioned is not represented at all within the male part of the participants, as mentioned above, and will now not be mentioned where it is irrelevant. For the age group, 36-45, the frequency is more equal throughout the categories, however the category “Maps” is the most popular category, followed by “Shopping” and “Pubs, Clubs, Bars and Restaurants”. The reason why shopping is a popular activity for this group, can be that when reaching this age, they have managed to create a career and earn some money after studying. This will result in more purchasing power than the younger groups of males. However, this group is the one that is weakest represented in the survey and the low number of participants in this age group can mark the results. In the age group, 46-55, the frequencies are even more blurred and equal between the different categories. It seems like the males that have reached this age are more concerned about where to stay, in other words, accommodation. However, the most likely reason for the blurred results can be that 6 of the males in this group decided not to answer the question and this counts for almost 43% of the males in this age group. Why this has occurred seems to be unclear. The 7 categories that are not represented at all are, “Shopping”, “Opening times”, “Culture”, “What’s near”, “Road info/accidents/incidents”, “Child friendly activities and child adapted software” and last “General information about the city”.
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The last age group, 55 +, is the category “Attractions and interesting sights” the most popular and highest ranked category. This is closely followed by “Maps” and “Culture”. This group is a fairly small group and is represented by only 7 male participants. The results are therefore spread between the categories and the 7 categories not mentioned are, “Events/Event locations and times”, “Shopping”, “Opening times”, “Accommodation”, “What’s near”, “Road info/accidents/incidents” and “Child friendly activities and child adapted software”. It is a surprise that accommodation is not mentioned at all, because you would think that where to stay would concern elder people more than the younger generations. When it comes to investigating the female preferences on what a mobile tourist guide should contain, we can see that there are 3 females represented that are under the age of 18. The results for this group are equally spread over 4 categories, because the number of participants in this group are so low. The categories mentioned are “Attractions and interesting sights”, ”Shopping”, “Opening hours”, and “Pubs, Clubs, Bars and Restaurants”. The results concerning opening times and shopping were expected. The reason for the expected result is according to the stereotype most people have when it comes to teenage girls and their passion for shopping. In the next group, females in the age 18-25, the results are similar to the male results in the same age group, as mentioned earlier in the analysis. The low interest in the category “Shopping” was unexpected, but can also be seen as logical. We can draw this conclusion on the basis of this age group’s economy and the majority’s occupation at this stage in life. Most of the females are students when they are in the age 18 – 25 and the purchase power is therefore lower than it is for females that are working and earning money. 5 categories have not been showed any interest, “Accommodation”, “Road info/accidents/incidents”, “General info about the city”, “What’s near” and the last category concerning children, “Child friendly activities and child adapted software”. The age group 26-35, the most popular category is “Maps” with “Pubs, Clubs, Bars and Restaurants”, “Price- aware places to visit” and “General info about the city” as close followers on second place. Four females out of 18 did not answer this question, and this can be the reason for the vague trends.
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The females that represent the age group, 36 – 45, are a very small group with only 4 participants. One of these participants decided not to answer the question and that leaves only three women to stick out the trends for this specific group. The results are therefore evenly spread with no distinct categories. With such a small group to work with 8 categories are not mentioned, but where there is frequency it seems to be a wide spread area of interest. The categories mentioned are, “Maps”, “Events/ Event locations and times”,” History of buildings”, “Pubs, Clubs, Bars and Restaurants”, “Accommodation”, “Price- aware places to visit” and last “Culture”. In the age group, 46- 55, the top category is “Attractions and interesting sights”, closely followed by “Pubs, Clubs, Bars and Restaurants”. Only four categories are not mentioned, which are “Maps”, “Opening times”, “Price-aware places to visit” and “What’s near”. You can spot a similar trend in the age group 46- 55 for the male participants. For the group in the age ranging from 55+, the frequencies are evenly divided between the categories. The category that has the highest ranking is “Accommodation”, which is a surprise since in the same age group for men this category is not mentioned at all. This can be a coincidence since the numbers of participants are quite low for both male and female or it can be that women are more concerned about where and how nicely they live while travelling. Seven categories are not represented, “Events/ Event locations and times”, “Attractions and interesting sights”, ”Shopping”, “Price- aware places to visit”, “Culture”, “General info about the city” and last category is “Child friendly activities and child adapted software”. There were a few other interesting suggestions mentioned that were not mentioned by many, but could still be interesting to take in to consideration. A participant of the female part of the survey suggested that it could be useful to have the nearest police station, hospital and doctor displayed on the mobile tourist guide as an option, if any unexpected incident happened and emergency care is needed. This could be a useful addition to the mobile tourist guide and can also make users feel more secure. Countryside walking and cycle tracks are also interesting suggestions which can help the mobile tourist guide to broaden and catch more users that are interested in more than just experiencing “city life”.
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Section 3 Group awareness This section of the questionnaire considers what we maybe can call the most “uninvestigated” part of the research on mobile tourist guides. Research that has already been done on this issue have focused more on the individual user, while in this case it is of interest to map how many participants travel in groups and what type of group they travel in. The genders will be analysed separate and joint, so that we can spot any differences or similarities.
When you travel, do you travel in a group (more than one person)? Frequency of grouptravels MALE & FEMALE 100 %
80 %
60 %
Always Often Sometimes Never
% 40 %
20 %
0%
FE MA 18- 26- 36- 4618- 26- 36- 46>18 55+ MA >18 55+ LE 25 35 45 55 25 35 45 55 LE
Always
0
3
3
0
3
2
2
2
2
0
0
1
Often
0
4
7
3
4
1
0
5
0
0
2
3
Sometimes
0
4
4
3
7
4
1
4
8
3
9
3
Never
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
Age
This diagram illustrates the division between how often people travel in groups and also the connections between the male and the female groups. 100 % of the participants answered the question and if we consider the male part of the participants first, we can see from the diagram that most of the males sometimes travel in a group. Sometimes means that they can travel alone in some cases, like business travels or similar, while in other situations they travel with companionship. 22 out of 53 males sometimes travel in a group and this represents 41,5% of the total amount of males asked. 19 males out of 53 often travel in a group, which
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means that they most of the time travel with companionship and within a group and rarely leave on travels without bringing anyone with them. The 19 males that often travel in a group represents 35,9 % of the total number of males and is the second largest option chosen after “Sometimes”. The third largest option chosen are the option “Always”. 11 out of 53 males always travel within a group and in companionship and never leave to go on holiday or travels without bringing someone. This represents 20,8 % of the total number of men represented in the survey. Only one person answered that they never travel with companionship. This person represents 1,9 % of the males participating in the survey. The diagram illustrates that the columns are quite similar between the age groups, however none of the males in the age group, 36-45, always travel in a group. This can be interpreted in the direction that this group is active in work and most of the times leave on trips without brining any companionship. The part of the diagram showing the females participating in the survey has a more diverse diagram. The share of females that always travel within a group are much higher for the female part of the survey than for the male part. This is quite interesting and can illustrate that women feel more comfortable when travelling in a group and also that children are very often involved in women’s travelling. However, the percentages of women that are always travelling within a group are not the group that have the highest percentage. Women that always travel with companion counts 14,9 %, while the share where females sometimes travel in a group counts 59,6 % of all the women represented in the survey. We can here se similarities between the male and the female groups and the people that sometimes travel in a group is distinctively the largest option chosen. The second largest group represented, is the females that often travel n a group. This group represents 21,3 % of the participating females in the survey. Also in the female section, two people never travel together with anyone at all. This counts 4,3 % of the total number of women in the survey, but can be questioned if the person answering the question has misinterpreted the question. Overall the male and female groups are quite similar. The most distinct difference must be that the males seem to travel more often in a group than the females. The 55 + group shows that males are more dependent on their partner as they get older than females are. The diagram shows that the share of men that always travel in a group are larger or men than for women.
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If you travel in a group, which type of group do you travel with? Which type of group do people travel in? 100 %
No Answer Other Partner
80 %
Group of Friends Bustours
60 % % 40 %
20 % Age 0%
MAL E
>18 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 55+ Sum:
No Answer
0
0
1
0
1
0
2
Other
0
0
3
1
2
0
6
Partner
0
1
3
1
7
3
15
Group of Friends
0
10
8
3
1
3
25
Bustours
0
0
0
1
3
1
5
% 3,80 % 11,30 % 28,30 % 47,20 % 9,40 %
FEM >18 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 55+ Sum: ALE 0
0
0
1
0
2
3
1
2
2
1
3
0
9
0
1
1
0
0
1
3
2
8
6
0
7
4
27
0
0
1
2
1
1
5
% 6,40 % 19,20 % 6,40 % 57,50 % 10,60 %
The table and diagram are an overview over how the different categories are ranked. Out of this we can see that most people travel together with friends. However, what seemed to be an issue was that the participants ticked more than one box. The most frequently ticked boxes were Group of Friends and Partner. For the male part of the survey 30,2 % of the participants ticked more than one box. The table above shows the first box ticked and does not illustrate that there could be more than one box ticked. That can be the reason of the large amount of people travelling with friends and the low amount of people travelling with a partner. In the group 18-25 two participants ticked of that they travel with friends and with a partner. One ticked of travelling with friends and the alternative “Other”. However, when “Other” was the only option ticked, the specifications were that they travelled together with family, pipe bands and communities (church community). 103
The group 26-35 had five participants that ticked of that they travelled with friends and with a partner, while two ticked off travelling with partner and chose the option “Other”. The specifications on this option were that people travelled with children, pipe bands and family. One person ticked off that he travelled on bus tours with his partner. The double ticking of boxes can therefore explain why the table does not show many people travelling with partners in this group of age. When you are between 26 and 35 it would be logical to assume that a partner has become a part of the majority of people. The age group 36 – 45 is as mentioned before not very well represented in this survey, but two ticked off that they travelled together with a partner and friends. Where the option “Other” is chosen, it is specified that the majority is travelling with their co-workers and also together with pipe bands and family. The next age group, 46-55, has no double ticking and where the option “Other” is ticked; the specifications are travelling with pipe bands and family. In this group the bus tours are popular and has the highest rating of all the groups. For the participants over 55 years old, travel with partner and with friends. Many of the females participating in the survey did also tick off more than one box. What seemed to be the situation is that as much as 24 of the 47 participants ticked more than one box. This counts for 51,1 % of all the female participants and the diagram can therefore be somewhat misguiding when it comes to this issue. In the first group of females aged below 18 years old, one out of three girls ticked two boxes. She travels with friends and with her family, while when the option “Other” is chosen; the specification is left to travelling with parents and family. For the next group of females aged between 18 and 25, we can see a higher trend of travelling with friends and only one ticked off two boxes, where it was specified that she travel with both family and partner. Family is an option specified under “Other”, but not many in this group specified anything here. The majority of the younger girls travel as singles together with friends. 104
Females between 26 and 35 seems also to prefer travelling with friends, however it must be mentioned that 30 % of the participants in this group travel both with friends and with their partner. 18% travel with friends and family, while two persons ticked off that they travelled with bus tours and friends. When the option “Other ” is chosen, the specifications are that the majority travel with colleagues and with their family. The group aged between 36 and 45 are as mentioned with the male group, not very well represented. One person ticked off that they travel on bus tours and with partner. While the specification under “Other” are limited to travelling with family. In this group no participants ticked that they travelled with friends. This can be a misinterpretation based on the reason that there are so few participants, or that the majority of people in his group have family and children at this stage. Participants between the age 46 and 55 are quite well represented and give an interesting and valid result on the question. 36,4 % of the participants ticked two boxes when it comes to travelling with partner and friends. We can interpret this answer in the direction that most of the participants’ children will be growing up and start going on holiday together with friends or with their own partners. Their parents, which are now represented by this age group can then start travel with their own friends and also only with their partner again. 18,2 % ticked off that they travel with friends and family. This can maybe represent the younger part of this group, that still have children that have not completely left the nest yet. When the option “Other” is ticked, the specifications are that the majority travel together with colleagues and also with their family. The group over 55 years old travel most of the time with friends, but two of the participant decided not to answer the question and this will affect the result. The reason is that this group does not have too many overall participants. One female ticked off both that she travel on bus tours and with a group of friends. If you look at the overall picture of both the male and the female parts of the survey, we can see that the amount of females not answering this particular question is higher than the male part. More females did not answer the question while also the female part of the survey is smaller than the male part. In the diagram this will be shown as the blue part of the columns and the no answer part will then be displayed as a larger section in the female diagram than 105
the male diagram. The female part of the survey have also a higher percentage where the option “Other” is chosen. Females have been more specific than the males and specified more thoroughly that they go on holiday and trips together with their family and children. Another result that comes as a surprise is the amount of females that travel without a partner. 25,5 % of the female participants travel with a partner while the percentage of males that travels with a partner is 43,4 %. Both for females and males the double-ticked options are included. The reason for this is unclear, but it can be that the population of the survey is not big enough and this will change if you increase the size of the survey, or that females prefer to travel with friends more than they prefer to travel with a partner. If the overall result is analysed, you can see that most of the participants prefer to travel with a group of friends. A part of the percentage that travels within a group of friends do also travel with a partner or with one of the other options mentioned. However, what can be a solution to the high percentage of people travelling with friends, is that the circle of friends you have around you is often more stable and concise, while especially early in life, the partner can change frequently.
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Section 4 Usage of the traditional Maps and Guidebooks This section analyses three questions from the questionnaire that concerns traditional maps and guidebooks and how they are used. Are they used separate or together? What are the disadvantages and advantages with the traditional maps and guidebooks compared to the electronic versions? And last but least: What option would people think is better?
When you travel, do you use maps or guidebooks? In this question the genders are not analysed separate, the reason for this is that the results are very similar and there is not any distinct difference between the sexes or the age groups.
7%
3%
8%
YES, maps and guidebooks
2%
YES, maps YES, guidebooks NO No answer
80 %
The diagram shows that most of the participants in the survey use both maps and guidebooks when they travel. 8 % of the participants use no help from either maps or guidebooks, while 7 % only use maps. If guidebooks are also taken into consideration, only 3% use guidebooks as their only help when they travel. The reason for such a large difference between the separate usage of maps and guidebooks is because there are certain drawbacks with guidebooks, such as, they are bulky and heavy to carry and also the fact that proper directions cannot be determined using only guidebooks. While on the other hand maps are easy to carry and do not require a large amount of space. Maps will also provide exact direction details.
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Advantages and Disadvantages with traditional maps and guidebooks This question concerns the advantages and disadvantages of the traditional maps and guidebooks over how they think the electronic version would be. During the investigation of the answers given on the question, the same advantages and disadvantages started to reappear and for “Advantages” 8 categories were created and for “Disadvantages” 6 categories were created. The categories in “Advantages” are: *
Trustworthiness No dependence on batteries and technology.
*
Cost The prize and cost of use
*
Size and Details Size and details of books and maps
*
Current and updated information
*
Easy to read and use
*
Damage
*
Souvenir Keep maps and books as souvenirs
*
Electronic version A summary of the advantages of the electronic versions.
The categories for “Disadvantages” are:
*
Damage
*
Hard to use and read
*
Electronic version A summary of the disadvantages of the electronic versions.
*
Size and Details
*
Inaccurate information
*
Cost
The different categories are weighted after how often they occurred and the frequency will tell what advantages and disadvantages are the ones the majority think about when they consider the question.
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The category “Damage” is present in both advantages and disadvantages. This category can be present in both sections on the basis that for “Advantages” it is positive, because if you lose a map or a guidebook it is not the end of the world. In “Disadvantages” this category is negative, because maps and books are easy to tear and get easily wet in bad weather. Many people also seem to think that maps are quite hard to fold and keep in good shape. The category “Size and Details” do also appear in both sections. In “Advantages” because the traditional maps are fairly detailed and there are guidebooks on the market that are pocket sized to be easy to carry around. 22 % of the participants in the survey did not answer the question, while 11% did not fill in the section “Advantages” and 9% did not fill in the section “Disadvantages”. The question analyses the genders on a joint basis and not kept separate. This is because there are no distinct differences between the opinions of the genders and there is no trend showing that one category is more popular than others, between the groups of age.
Ranking
ADVANTAGES Frequency, f 1Trustworthiness 1Easy to read and use 2Size and Details 3Electronic version 4Cost 5Damage 6Souvenir 7Current and updated information
15 15 10 7 6 2 2 1
The figure above shows the ranking from 1st to 7th place over what qualities the participants in the survey set highest with the traditional maps and guide books. “Trustworthiness” and “Easy to read and use” share 1st place with an equal frequency. While on 2nd place, where the detailed description of tourist sights and the size and weight of maps are well appreciated. The electronic versions come on a close third place, and there were mentioned a few qualities with the mobile tourist guides that are positive compared to the traditional maps and books. Mobile Tourist Guide was described of the participants as light weight, handy, more information in one device, easier to find places when you can get live directions and also that it could be more detailed than the traditional maps and guidebooks. The fact that they always contain up to date information is also a very important feature.
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Ranking
DISADVANTAGES Frequency, f 1Size and Details 2Current and updated information 3Electronic version 4Hard to read and use 5Damage 6Cost
28 18 8 7 5 2
The figure above displays the ranking of the disadvantages with traditional maps and guidebooks. On 1st place rules the size and the details, even though this also scores well in the advantages. However, the maps and guidebooks are described as bulky, heavy and the maps are most of the time too big and hard to read if you are on the move. On 2nd place is the category “Current and updated information”. A female participant mentioned in the survey mentioned, “the guidebooks can be out dated already the day after publication”. This is in majority the truth most of the time, if not exactly the moment it is release, it goes out of date quite quickly. The electronic version is also in the disadvantages given some comments. According to the participants in the survey, Mobile Tourist Guides can he too technological to use, they are dependent on batteries and electricity, does not always function properly and last the cost to purchase such a device and also the software has a much higher cost than the traditional paper maps and books. Some of the elder participants in the survey mentioned that this type of technology is reserved for the younger generations. The overall picture of how the advantages and disadvantages are rated, give the impression that the stabile and hard copy maps and books are something that is highly appreciated, but the drawback with this is that it is heavy and bulky, and also maps can be hard to read and understand if there is little knowledge about how to interpret maps.
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Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than the traditional? This is question is the last in Section 4 and give an overview over the opinions given whether the new technology can provide a better service than the traditional books and maps. The male and female parts are analysed separate and joint to investigate if there are any differences in opinion between the genders. The age groups are not taken into consideration, due to that the results given for both male and female participants are quite distinct.
MALE Response ratio
YES
NO
MAYBE
NO ANSWER
36
8
8
1
% of total male group FEMALE Response ratio
67,90 %
15,10 %
15,10 %
1,90 %
20
15
6
6
% of total male group
42,60 %
31,90 %
12,80 %
12,80 %
Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than traditional maps and books? MALE 15 %
2%
15 %
YES NO MAYBE NO ANSWER 68 %
The diagram above illustrates the male part of the survey. 68 % believe that the mobile tourist guide will be a good replacement for the traditional guidebooks and maps. 30 % are not too positive about the new coming technology. This is divided into 15% clear no and 15 % maybe, which means that 15 % of the participants asked might change their mind and try a mobile tourist guide if it became available on the market.
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Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than traditional maps and books? FEMALE
13 % 13 %
42 %
YES NO MAYBE NO ANSWER
32 %
The female part of the survey is not very positive to the mobile tourist guide. The majority is positive, 42 %, but the negative section is a close follower and counts 32 %. There are still 13% that are uncertain and might change their mind if they could experience the electronic version and compare it up against the experience of using the traditional maps and guidebooks. However, there are 13 % who have decided not to answer the question at all and seem to be a recurrent trend throughout the survey. Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than traditional maps and books? MALE & FEMALE
14 %
7% YES NO MAYBE 56 %
23 %
NO ANSWER
From the diagrams above it is clearly stated that the male participants are more positive to the mobile tourist guides providing a better service than the traditional guidebooks and maps. However, in the previous section, Section 2, where the interest around the mobile tourist guide was investigated, the male part of the survey had a much more positive attitude towards the new technology than the female part of the survey. This trend seems to be mirrored in the results of this question. When the joint diagram is investigated, the positive participants have a small victory. The negative section is quite significant, but there is also left 14 % that are uncertain and could change their mind.
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Section 5 The Mobile Tourist Guide vs. Trustworthiness and Security The last question in the survey concerns the trustworthiness of a mobile tourist guide. Here it is investigated if people would trust this kind of technology and in case the technology is not trusted, a valid reason is given. The trustworthiness of the mobile tourist guide can include the application running correctly and give the correct guidance at any time or also include the hardware and technological breakdowns and similar cases. To trust is also an issue that has to do with personal safety and that personal details stored in the device and such issues are protected. This question is divided in to a gender-divided investigation to spot any differences between the genders, but age will not be considered in this case. The reason for this is the conciseness of the results.
Would you trust a mobile tourist guide? MALE
11 %
4%
YES NO NA
85 %
The diagram above shows that a distinct part of the male participants in the survey will trust a mobile tourist guide. This can be connected with earlier questions where the majority of the men are utterly positive to new technology and is also less sceptical to try new devices and software. 11% of the males participating are sceptical to the mobile tourist guide and 4 % chose not to answer the question. The participants who answered no on the question answered no because they wanted to try out the device themselves before deciding if it is trustworthy or not. One participant mentioned that a mobile tourist guide is only as good as the information given by the administrator. So it needs not to be more recent than books. Some of the participants are concerned of the level of 113
difficulty and not have the opportunity to ask questions, while others were concerned if the hardware could be trusted.
Would you trust a mobile tourist guide? FEMALE
9% 23 % YES NO NA 68 %
The female group is also positive and trusting towards the mobile tourist guide. However, the scepticism is larger in the female section and the percentage of unanswered questions is larger. This can be mirrored throughout the survey and this question can be connected with the other questions where females are sceptical and negative to the mobile tourist guide and similar technology. The reasons for why the mobile tourist guide is not trusted are spread over an area that covers economy, technology and difficulty level. The older generation means that they are too old to handle this kind of technology, while the younger generation believe that technology always go wrong at some point and it will be boring not to interact and communicate with real persons. How the service is supposed to be supported economically is also an issue and what can be a reason for this, is the fear against large phone bills.
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Would you trust a mobile tourist guide? MALE & FEMALE
6% 17 % YES NO NA
77 %
When the joint diagram is investigated it illustrates the large majority who will trust and support a mobile tourist guide. The explanation to this can be that technology certainly goes wrong sometimes, but it is improved every day and also the support structure around hardware and software today are very solid. Help can be given sometimes on a 24-hour basis, just by pressing a button or dialling a number.
Section 6 Comments from the participants This section concerns the part of the survey where a possible future user of a mobile tourist guide have been given the opportunity to give comments on what they think of the system and the general idea around implementing a mobile tourist guide in the holiday and travelling environment. The comments are represented in two tables, one for the male part of the survey and one for the female part. The comments are diverse and interesting and mention the participant’s personal opinions and overall impression of the system.
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MALE: 1.
People from USA are not as technological enlightened as the Europeans. The mobile tourist guide technology must therefore be adapted to different markets.
2.
Excellent!
3.
How does this work indoors?
4.
Well done! Good stuff!
5.
Do not often rely on guidebooks, because it is preferable to talk to locals instead. The reason is that a guidebook cannot really tell you if a pizza place is good or not. It might be ranked as a good pizza place, but can in reality be bad. This information is what you get from the people in the local area.
6.
Navigation system
7.
Must be updated and reliable
8.
Prefer cycling and hiking free of any electronics. This might be a good product for people who are not very fit in English.
9.
Must consider the costs versus the costs of the traditional maps. Will this be an upfront fee system or a user paid system?
10. Success! 11. Not an enthusiastic cell-user. 12. Software must be easy to update and cheap. 13. The guided tour is best!
116
FEMALE: 1.
I am sure it can interest other people.
2.
Price of software
3.
Keep the tour guide!
4.
Sounds fascinating and would be interesting to try out. Do not think it will replace the maps or the guidebooks.
5.
If such technology would become available outside the US, usage would be considered, but probably not.
6.
Interesting to find out if the mobile system is an improvement on maps and similar.
7.
Not brought up in the technology age.
8.
Easily understandable design and affordable by all. No taxing!
9.
This is just the start! Looking forward to try it!
10. Would have liked to have this on a recent trip to Prague. 11. Depending on the country you are from, will it work on a mobile? Maps etc. are often free. Impressionable communication and more fun verbal. Technology is ok at work, but not on holiday. 12. Like the idea, but not necessarily on a mobile phone.
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APPENDIX B CODE LISTING
118
Server Code
