Tag Archives: cellular telephone

Delivering Information Where It is Needed: Location Based Information

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I recently started working at Findwise after having finished my thesis on location based information delivery in a mobile phone. The purpose of my thesis was to:

  • Investigate how location based information (as opposed to fixed locations) could be connected to search results
  • Improve quality of location based information by considering the course and velocity of the user

To start with, I created an iPhone application with a location-based reminder system. The reminders described location constraints and users could create reminders with single locations (at home) or groups of locations (at any pharmacy). To find these groups of locations, the system searched for locations with associated information (like nearby pharmacies) and delivered this information without users having to click Search repeatedly.

This is an unusual approach to search as the user is passive, instead the system is performing searches for the user. However, to make search results relevant one has to add contextual constraints to describe when, where and to whom a piece of information is relevant. When all constraints are met, information should be relevant. If not, the system lacks some crucial contextual constraints.

When search is automated, the importance of relevant search results increases and the more you know of the users world, the better you can adjust the results. However, traditional search can also benefit from contextual information. It can be used as a filter where search results that are irrelevant in the current context are removed. Alternatively it could be a part of the relevance model, improving search results by reordering them according to context. Hence, whereas automatic information delivery is probably undesirable for many types of information – contextual constraints can still be of good use!

The people who tested my application created 25% of their reminders as groups of locations and found it useful as it helped them find places they weren’t aware of, facilitating opportunistic behavior. The course and velocity information reduced the number of false-positive information deliveries. Overall, the system worked well as a niche product.

Search and Accessibility

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Västra Götalands regionen has introduced a new search solution that Findwise created together with Netrelations. Where both search and accessibility is important. We have also blogged about it earlier (see How to create better search – VGR leads the way). One important part of the creation of this solution was to create an interface that is accessible to everyone.

Today the web offers access to information and interaction for people around the world. But many sites today have barriers that make it difficult, and sometimes even impossible for people with different disabilities to navigate and interact with the site. It is important to design for accessibility  – so that no one is excluded because of their disabilities.

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, interact and contribute to the Web. But web accessibility is not only for people that use screen readers, as is often portrayed. It is also for people with just poor eyesight who need to increase the text size or for people with cognitive disabilities (or sometimes even for those without disabilities). Web accessibility can benefit people without disabilities, such as when using a slow Internet connection, using a mobile phone to access the web or when someone is having a broken arm. Even such a thing as using a web browser without javascript because of company policy can be a disability on the web and should be considered when designing websites.

So how do you build accessible websites?

One of the easiest things is to make sure that the xhtml validates. This means that the code is correct, adheres to the latest standard from W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and that the code is semantically correct i.e. that the different parts of the website use the correct html ”tags” and in the correct context. For example that the most important heading of a page is marked up with ”h1” and that the second most important is ”h2” (among other things important when making websites accessible for people using screen readers).

It is also important that a site can easily be navigated only by keyboard, so that people who cannot use a mouse still can access the site. Here it is important to test in which order the different elements of the web page is selected when using the keyboard to navigate through the page. One thing that is often overlooked is that a site often is inaccessible for people with cognitive disabilities because the site contains content that uses complex words, sentences or structure. By making content less complex and more structured it  will be readable for everyone.

Examples from VGR

In the search application at VGR elements in the interface that use javascript will only be shown if the user has a browser with java script enabled. This will remove any situations where elements do not do anything because java script is turned off. The interface will still be usable, but you will not get all functionality. The VGR search solution also works well with only the keyboard, and there is a handy link that takes the user directly to the results. This way the user can skip unwanted information and navigation.

How is accessibility related to findability?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/morville/4274260576/in/set-72157623208480316/

Search and Accessibility

Accessibility is important for findability because it is about making search solutions accessible and usable for everyone. The need to find information is not less important if you are blind,  if you have a broken arm or if you have dyslexia. If you cannot use a search interface you cannot find the information you need.

“what you find changes who you become” -Peter Morville

In his book Search Patterns Peter Morville visualizes this in the ”user experience honeycomb”. As can been seen in the picture accessibility is as much a part of the user experience as usability or findability is and a search solution will be less usable without any of them.