Exploring the urban environment with a camera phone: lessons from a user study

We present a study investigating two novel mobile services supporting querying for information in the urban environment using camera equipped smart phones as well as two different ways to visualize results – icon-based visualization and text-based visualization. Both applications enable the user to access information about an object by snapping a photo of it. We investigate how users would use a photo-based tourist guide in a free exploration setting in general as well as the acceptance/preference of two different ways to visualize results. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 [User Interfaces]: GUI, Interaction Styles General Terms Performance, Design, Experimentation, Human Factors. Keywords mobile devices, computer vision, augmented reality

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: MHCI
• Authors: Norman Höller, Arjan Geven, Manfred Tscheligi, Lucas Paletta, Katrin Amlacher, Patrick Morris Luley, Dusan Omercevic
• Keywords: Human Computer Interaction, Icon-based Visualization, Keywords Mobile Devices, MHCI 2009, Photo-based Tourist Guide