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

Fry Birte Bjrneseth

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 tourists experience. The purpose of this study is to explore the technical possibilities and to obtain feedback from a sample of todays 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 1990s 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 PDAs, tablet PCs 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 devices 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 devices 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]

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 individuals 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
Research, planning, explore equipment and start making questionnaires and prepare interviews.

Week 1 - 3

Week 4- 5

Visit out.

tourist

spots

and

observe.

Questionnaires and interviews will be carried Week 6- 12 Week 13- 16 Week 17 Fig. 1-1: Project timescale Develop the prototype, software and testing Write up report and make sure everything is working. Deadline Monday 12.09.05

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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 Moores 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 90s the development of mobile technology turned from being simple mobile phones to becoming more and more powerful devices. Computers became smaller and PDAs (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 peoples 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 1990s 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]

14

GPS2 was developed by the U.S. Department of Defence and was given public accessibility on President Bill Clintons 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 PDAs. 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 devices surrounding environment. This is what makes the device context-aware.

http://www.trimble.com/gps/index.html [Last accessed: 12.09.05]

15

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 buss payment system. The ticket can then be paid without using money that has to be physically present.

16

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 1990s and the research group developed over a years 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 Cyberguides 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, Wigstrm 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, Verssimo, 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 PDAs 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 Hummingbirds 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 Reichenbachers 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)

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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

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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 smartphones 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 users 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:
lat p lat1 lat2 lat1 long p long1 long 2 long1

xp = (

) x2

yp = (

) 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 users 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.

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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

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 participants own opinions and can here write down some comments regarding either the survey or anything else that might spring to the participants 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 % 26 % 11,32 % 28 % 21 % 0% MALE %

7 14 6 15 11 0

17,02 % 23,40 % 8,51 % 21,27 % 23,40 % 6,40 %

8 11 4 10 11 3 55+ 46-55 36-45 26-35 18-25 <18

Number of FEMALE % Number of responses responses

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Fig. 4-1: Age division between MALE and FEMALE participants The age groups 18-25 are equally represented between the genders. This is a trend that goes for all the age groups and from the diagram the percentage representing in each group of age is quite similar. One group that is not represented in both male and female is the group under 18 years old. There are only three participants in this group and they are all female. The reason for this can be that girls can feel more comfortable when it comes to travelling with parents at this age. However, what was experienced while handing out questionnaires and observing the participants while they were filling them in, was that the parents were automatically in charge when the questionnaires were handed out, and often the oldest person in the family filled in the answers after discussing with the rest of the group/family. The group between 36 and 45 years old are not well represented in the survey at all. The reason for this can be the possibility of the majority of people representing this group have small children and do not prefer to go on city holidays.

4.2

Occupation

The different occupations represented in the questionnaires are very diverse. Most of the occupations represented are one of a kind within the 53 % that represents the male participants and the same trend is visible in the female part of the survey. However, in the group 18-25 a significant amount of the participants for both genders are students. This is considered logical, since the majority of people under education are in the age group 18-25. In general, some stereotypical occupations occur both in the male and female part of the survey. For men the occupations lorry driver, joiner and crane driver are typical male occupations and for the women care workers, teachers and housewives appear. For the female part of the survey the amount of teachers represented were significant. Throughout the investigation of the participants occupations, the same title occurred once or twice, while in the female part the occupation, teacher, was represented quite heavily. The main reason can be that the majority of teachers have summer holiday at this time of the year. Another solution can be the dimensions of the survey and the possibility that it is too small. The details of the investigation of this question can be found in Appendix A, Section 1.

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4.3

Interest of usage of Mobile Tourist Guide

This question was designed to investigate how interested the participants were in using a Mobile Tourist Guide if it became available on the market. There were differences between the sexes and the female part of the survey was significant more negative to the idea of using this kind of technology. Almost 30 % of the women were negative compare to only 9 % of the men. This development can mirror females scepticism against what the male part of the survey might call gadgets and also the common interest for technology among the female population in general are lower than the male population. This can come from old patterns that women grew into decades ago and started to break lose from in the 1960s and 1970s.

Consider use of Mobile Tourist Guide MALE + FEMALE

100 % 80 % % 60 % 40 % 20 % 0%
No Answer % NO% YES % >18 0 0 3 18-25 0 5 17 26-35 2 7 16 36-45 0 0 9 46-55 1 2 22 55+ 0 4 11

No Answer % NO% YES %

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

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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 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 Attractions and interesting sights Maps Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times) Events/Event locations and times Accommodation (including price details) Price aware places to visit Shopping History of buildings, places and people Shared between: Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums) General info about the city Shared between: Opening hours Road info/accidents/incidents Whats near Child friendly activities and child adapted software (FREQUENCY = 0) CHART FEMALE Shared between: Maps Attractions and interesting sights Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants 2 3 4 Shared between: Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times) Events/Event locations and times Accommodation (including price details) Shared between: Shopping Opening hours History of buildings, places and people Price aware places to visit Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums) 5 6 7 General info about the city Shared between: Road info/accidents/incidents Child friendly activities and child adapted software Whats 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 %

%
40 % 20 % 0% FE MA <1 18- 26- 36- 46- 55 <1 18- 26- 36- 46- 55 MA LE 8 25 35 45 55 + 8 25 35 45 55 + LE 0 3 3 0 3 2 2 2 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 4 0 7 4 1 3 3 0 4 7 0 1 4 0 Age 0 1 0 5 4 0 0 8 0 0 3 1 2 9 0 3 3 1

Always Often Sometimes Never

Always Often Sometimes Never

Fig.4-3: Frequency of grouptravels, MALE & FEMALE The part of the diagram showing the females participating in the survey has a more diverse diagram. The comparison by gender of those who always travel in a group, which means more than one person, shows significantly higher incidence for females than males. This can illustrate that women feel more comfortable travelling in a group, than travelling alone. However, not to forget that children are very often involved in womens travelling. The male part has a more equal division between the alternatives available, but the majority of men sometimes travel in a group. If both genders are taken into consideration, the majority do sometimes travel in a group. The alternative sometimes can be regarded as sometimes travelling alone and sometimes in a group. If business trips and similar cases are looked into, it is understandable that people might travel alone in some situations. Overall the male and female groups are quite similar. The most distinct difference must be that males seem to travel more often in a group than females. The 55 + group shows that males are more dependent on their partner as they get older than females are. If this is a fact or the scale of the survey can disillusion, remains unclear. The diagram illustrates that the share of men that always travel in a group are larger in the male part of the survey than the female part.

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A more detailed explanation of the diagram can be found in Appendix A, Section 3.

4.6

Categories of Group travels

There are four categories that represent the different kind of ways of travelling. The different categories are split into participants who travel on bus tours, with partner, with a group of friends and last an option called Other. This is made available for specification for the participants who travel with either of the above categories. What seemed to be an issue with this question were the participants ticking more than one box, i.e. partner and group of friends. This had to be taken into consideration and the diagram below does not illustrate the double- ticking of boxes. The two boxes that were ticked most frequently were travelling with partner and also together with friends. The table below shows the first box ticked and does not illustrate that there could be more than one box ticked. That is the reason of the large amount of people travelling with friends and the low amount of people travelling with a partner.
Which type of group do people travel in?
100 % No Answer Other 80 % Partner Group of Friends Bustours 60 % % 40 %

20 % Age
MAL <18 E 0 0 0 0 0 1825 0 0 1 10 0 2635 1 3 3 8 0 3645 0 1 1 3 1 4655 1 2 7 1 3 55+ Sum: 0 0 3 3 1 2 % FEM <18 ALE 0 1 0 2 0 1825 0 2 1 8 0 2635 0 2 1 6 1 3645 1 1 0 0 2 4655 0 3 0 7 1 55+ Sum: 2 0 1 4 1 3 %

0%
No Answer Other Partner Group of Friends Bustours

3,80 % 6 11,30 % 15 28,30 % 25 47,20 % 5 9,40 %

6,40 % 9 19,20 % 3 6,40 % 27 57,50 % 5 10,60 %

Fig. 4-4: Which type of group do people travel in? The combined picture of both parts of the survey, male and female, the amount of females not answering this particular question is higher than the male part. In addition to this, the female

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part of the survey is smaller than the male part. In the diagram this is illustrated 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 the male diagram. The female part of the survey also has 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 number of females who travel without a partner. 25,5 % of the female participants travel with a partner while the percentage of males who travel with a partner is 43,4 %, the double-ticked options are included for both parts. The reason for this is unclear, but it can be the size of the survey and the population not being big enough. This can change if you increase the size of the survey or it will remain stable and females do 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, can be the circle of friends people have around them is often more stable and concise, while especially early in life, the partner can change frequently. A more detailed explanation of the diagram can be found in Appendix A, Section 3.

4.7

Usage of the traditional Maps and Guidebooks

The traditional maps and guidebooks have been used through decades and this part of the questionnaire investigates how maps and guidebooks are being used. There are advantages and disadvantages to consider and also what can be the best alternative to use: The traditional navigators or the electronic Mobile Tourist Guide.
8% 2% YES, maps and guidebooks YES, maps YES, guidebooks NO No answer

3% 7%

80 %

Fig.4-5: Usage of traditional maps and guidebooks 45

The sector diagram illustrates clearly that the majority of the asked use both maps and guidebooks when they travel. The reason for this can be the functionality between maps and guidebooks are different. Maps will guide while guidebooks will mostly give summaries and tell about the different places lead to by maps. There is a significant difference between the usage of only maps and only guidebooks and the reason for this is the guidebooks drawbacks. A book is heavy and bulky to carry and as mentioned above, does not give proper guidance and directions. A more detailed explanation of the diagram can be found in Appendix A, Section 4.

4.8

Advantages and Disadvantages

There are certain advantages and disadvantages concerning the traditional maps and guidebooks versus the electronic mobile tourist guide. The pro ad cons mentioned by the participants were gathered in two tables where the frequency of appearance of each category decided what was ranked highest.
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

Table 4-2: Advantages traditional maps and guidebooks

Ranking DISADVANTAGES Frequency, f 1 Size and Details 2 Current and updated information 3 Electronic version 4 Hard to read and use 5 Damage 6 Cost

Table 4-3: Disadvantages traditional maps and guidebooks

28 18 8 7 5 2

From the tables, four categories are mentioned both in advantages and disadvantages. The explanation on this is the terms of condition for the categories are different. 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 46

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 overall picture of how the advantages and disadvantages are rated, give the impression that the stabile and hard copy maps and books are highly appreciated, but the drawback with this is that they are heavy and bulky, and also maps can be hard to read and understand if there is little knowledge about how to interpret them. The electronic version is also mentioned. The main advantage is the size and the amount of information that can be fitted in it, while the main disadvantage is the cost of the device and if it is trustworthy. A more detailed explanation of the diagram can be found in Appendix A, Section 4.

4.9

Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than the traditional?

The participants were asked if they thought that the Mobile Tourist Guide would provide a better service to the public than the traditional guidebooks and maps. The majority agreed, however the female participants are again more negative than the male participants. This pulls the average down and the section of the diagram that is positive shrinks in favour for the negative part.
Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than traditional maps and books? MALE & FEMALE

14 %

7% YES NO MAYBE 56 % NO ANSWER

23 %

Fig. 4-6: Mobile Tourist Guide: A better service than traditional maps and books? MALE & FEMALE The overall impression is positive, but there is also left a part of the participants who are uncertain and can change their minds in either direction. The negative influence on the diagram is mirrored from earlier questions where the interest around using the mobile tourist guide is low. A more detailed explanation of the diagram can be found in Appendix A, Section 4.

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4.10 Trustworthiness and Security

The last question in the survey concerns the trustworthiness of a mobile tourist guide. This question investigates 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.

Would you trust a mobile tourist guide? MALE & FEMALE

6% 17 % YES NO NA

77 %

Fig. 4-7: Would you trust a mobile tourist guide? MALE & FEMALE Technology in general is more trusted now than before, but hardware and software crashes are a well-known problem. 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. However, the reasons for why the mobile tourist guide is not trusted are spread over an area that covers economy, technology and difficulty level.

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4.11 Comments and Opinions

The last part of the questionnaire was reserved for the participants own opinions. There were many interesting suggestions and they varied from excitement over the idea to people who would like to keep their human tour guide and also keep their holiday technology free. Two tables illustrates the opinions, one male and one female table: MALE: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. People from USA are not as technological enlightened as the Europeans. The mobile tourist guide technology must therefore be adapted to different markets. Excellent! How does this work indoors? Well done! Good stuff! 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. 7. 8. 9. Navigation system Must be updated and reliable Prefer cycling and hiking free of any electronics. This might be a good product for people who are not very fit in English. 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! Table 4-4: Male comments

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FEMALE: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. I am sure it can interest other people. Price of software Keep the tour guide! Sounds fascinating and would be interesting to try out. Do not think it will replace the maps or the guidebooks. If such technology would become available outside the US, usage would be considered, but probably not. Interesting to find out if the mobile system is an improvement on maps and similar. Not brought up in the technology age. Easily understandable design and affordable by all. No taxing! 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. Table 4-5: Female comments

4.12 Summary
The survey has given an interesting insight in how people would welcome the mobile tourist guide on the market. Even though the majority is very positive to most of the issues mentioned in the survey, there are some, mostly female, who are not very excited about the idea. That means that the development of a system ready for the market must think of how the doubters can be turned into believers and also how to make the negative responses into positive by adapting the system to the user in a way that makes it easy and understandable for all users, both young and old.

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5.0 Software Implementation and Development

Software Implementation and Development deals with the issues concerning how to develop software for smartphones, what hardware requirements there were to build the Mobile Tourist Guide and what problems occurred during the development of the system, including how to overcome the specific problems.

5.1

CLIENT

5.1.1 Hardware requirements

To be able to build a prototype, the software needs a host to run on and to display the facilities implemented in the software. For the Mobile Tourist Guide a smartphone, Orange SPV E200, was chosen to be the device to host the Mobile Tourist Guide software. A smartphone was chosen because it is a device that has extended memory and this particular phone also runs on an operating system that is well supported. GPS is used to provide the Mobile Tourist Guide with coordinates that are transformed into x and y coordinates to position the user on the map. Compared to a Pocket PC or the extended Pocket PC phone editions, the smartphone is smaller and handier. The drawback is the challenge of designing for a smaller screen where all menu choices are limited and grouped to two soft keys. 5.1.2 Orange SPV E200 SmartPhone The device used to host the Mobile Tourist Guide or what can be called the client side of this system, is a smartphone of type, Orange SPV E 200. This phone runs on the Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone operating system that gives open access to creating new software for the device. Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone has wide support online on Microsofts own homepages and is an open standard where the API is easy to use and the MSDN library is well developed. The smartphone has both IrDA and Bluetooth connectivity. In addition to that it has a docking station with ActiveSync software to handle synchronization between the computer and the device. ActiveSync is also required to upload applications to the device. The screen resolution is 176 x 220 and the smartphone supports GPRS connection to connect to the Internet. A Texas Instruments OMAP 710 processor running at 132MHz powers the smartphone and the internal memory is 32 MB and is also supported with 64 MB of flash ROM. There are

51

possibilities of extending the memory with a SD/MMC card. The Bluetooth connectivity is important in this case. The GPS device will use bluetooth to connect to the Smartphone to provide GPS coordinates to the software and this leaves Bluetooth as an essential feature concerning the choice of smartphone.

Fig.5-1: Orange SPV E200

5.1.3 Global Positioning System

Since the beginning of times people have tried to find out where they are and where they are going. Different positioning systems have been tried out over the years, but all had their disadvantages. In the beginning of the 1970s the U.S. Department of Defence started the testing of what is know today as GPS, the Global Positioning System. GPS is a worldwide radio-navigation system that was made public in the 1990s and consists of 24 satellites and their ground stations. By using triangulation of signals from the satellites, the system is able to localise the receiver as close as a few centimetres from the actual location. When a receiver triangulates a signal, it means it measures distance using the time radio signals travel from the satellite and down to earth. When three satellites triangulate, they minimize the area the receiver can be in down to two points and most commonly one of the points is completely irrelevant and can be excluded without taking further notice. The receiver is then left with one point, which is the receivers location. However, if the second point cannot be discharged immediately, a fourth satellite must be used and the signal is now as accurate as can be. In the Mobile Tourist Guide, GPS is used for marking the tourists location so the user can navigate through a city and also spot other tourists that are in the same group on their map. Two different GPS devices were tried out for the Mobile Tourist Guide, NAVMAN 4400 and EMTAC CRUX II. Both devices were connected to the SmartPhone via Bluetooth connectivity.

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5.1.4 NAVMAN 4400

The first GPS Bluetooth GPS receiver tested with the SmartPhone was NAVMAN 4400 from the New Zealand based company NAVMAN5. This receiver is driven by three AAA batteries and is not dependent on a charger, which is a positive feature with the device. The NAVMAN 4400 is larger than other GPS receiver, but the batteries support it for up to 30 hours of power.

Fig.5-2: NAVMAN 4400

Fig.5-3 Power supply NAVMAN 4400

NAVMAN 4400s antenna is multi-directional and has possibilities to plug in an external antenna. The receiver has implemented 12 parallel channels and it updates every second after a fix is obtained. The Bluetooth software that is situated in the receiver, implements the Serial Port Profile (SPP) and this is where the problems with the NAVMAN 4400 are introduced. The PIN code was not mentioned anywhere and had to be looked up online. To pair the GPS receiver with the SmartPhone the default PIN code was set to NAVMAN, which is an alphanumerical PIN. PIN codes are usually set to a four-digit code, but not in this case. This caused an interesting and time-consuming problem concerning smartphones. Smartphones like the Orange SPV E200 do not have alphanumerical PIN input enabled and is also the issue with some Pocket PCs as well. However, for the Pocket PC platform software was developed to automatically enable the alphanumerical PIN input. This was not compatible with the Windows Mobile 2003 platform and other solutions were sought. To hardcode the PIN into the code was one option, but connection between the devices could still not be established and a new GPS receiver with a four-digit code was provided. Another interesting issue that appeared after testing the NAVMAN 4400 on a Pocket PC device where connection could be established was that the device was extremely inaccurate.

http://www.navman.com

53

An inaccuracy of up to 250 meters was discovered, which is unacceptable for a GPS receiver and the device was discarded for use in other purposes.

5.1.5 EMTAC CRUX II

EMTAC CRUX II6 is a bluetooth GPS that has the four-digit PIN code required for smartphones and paired easily with the bluetooth connection situated in the smartphone. EMTAC is powered by a rechargeable and built-in lithium ion battery, which can power the device for up to 6 hours. This makes the user dependent on electricity and rechargeable batteries can also have a limited lifetime, which can wear out the battery quite quickly if the device is used on a daily basis. Apart from the issues regarding power supply and PIN code for pairing, EMTAC CRUX II and NAVMAN 4400 have similar specifications.

Fig. 5-4: EMTAC CRUX II

5.1.6 Developing applications for SmartPhones

The client side of the system consists of the smartphone, as described above, with software implemented and the GPS device to provide input to the system. The software implemented on the phone is developed in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 20037 and the language used is C#. The Microsoft documentation is open and is cooperating well with the operating system, Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone. To be able to work with smartphones in Visual Studio .NET, the Microsoft Smartphone 2003 SDK8 had to be installed. This would give the opportunity to test the applications on an emulator as well as on the device itself. This could be practical, since it takes more time to deploy the application on the actual device than on the emulator. To locate the folder where the applications are being
6 7

www.emtac.com http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/ 8 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A6C4F799-EC5C-427C-807C4C0F96765A81&displaylang=en

54

stored, an application called Smart Explorer9 was installed. This piece of software gives the opportunity to browse through the tree structure of the phone and open the folders needed which would normally be hidden if this software were not installed.

5.1.7 Software to capture GPS signals

Software to capture the GPS signals, latitude and longitude, two different libraries were tried out: PocketGPSlib10, which is an open source GPS library developed for Pocket PCs; and GPS.NET where free trial versions of GPS.NET for Compact Framework 1.0 (Smartphone)11 could be downloaded. However, a GPS.NET image referring to the trial version appeared every time the application was run, which slowed down the processing. This was not desirable and the PocketGPS lib was chosen as the main library for development of GPS applications. A separate application, SmartGPS, was developed to process GPS input and check if the communication was flowing between the satellites and the receiver, where the application was built on a piece of sample code from the PocketGPSlib. The interface towards the user is obtained as simple as possible and in the screenshot below the user interface is displayed showing latitude, longitude, GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and also a textfield where the number of the suitable comport must be entered. When comport is entered, the user presses start and the application will display if the attempt is successful or times out. If a GPS fix is found and obtained, this will also be displayed on the screen.

Fig.5-5: Interface GPS application

http://www.binarys.com/SmartExplorer_en.asp http://gps.iter.dk/ 11 http://www.gpsdotnet.com/

10

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5.1.8 Implementation of classes from PocketGPSlib in methods

A GPS event handler was created to deal with the GPS events and capture the input from the receiver. This handler uses the GPSHandler- class that are predefined in the PocketGPS library and processes the raw GPS data coming from the GPS receiver. Example GPSEventHandler- method:
private void GPSEventHandler(object sender, GPSHandler.GPSEventArgs e) {}

The GPSHandler- class takes care of conversions and introduces and defines a new object, comport. This uses the class Comport, which is also predefined in the PocketGPS library. The Comport- class is used in the SmartGPS application to assign a comport for the communication between the devices and for receiving the input needed. The method StartComm takes care of assigning the correct comport using these lines of code:
int iComPort =int.Parse(ComPortNo.Text); GPS.Start(4800,iComPort); //Open port at 4800baud latitude.Text = "ComPort:"; latOutput.Text = iComPort.ToString();

This chunk of code is run when there is a comport need to be assigned and opened at a certain baudrate, for GPS the most common baudrate is 4800, as in this example. The number entered by the user in the textfield, is the comport number that is preferred. This is parsed to an integer by the code shown above and thereafter processed. The most common comport in these cases are comport number six, COM6. This opens for a flow of data between the devices.

5.1.9 Communication issues

The Smartphone paired easily with the EMTAC CRUXII and was organized to give a proper flow of communication between the devices and provide input from the satellites. However, the SmartGPS application refused to take any input at all and connection with comport timed out on COM6. The application, SmartGPS was developed with assistance from the PocketGPS library sample code, but did not give any result. Attempts to connect on the remaining comports failed, but was caught by an exception handler in to code and displayed:

56

catch(System.Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show("An error occured when trying to open port: " + ex.Message); }

A possible explanation to the problem could be the input provided by the user in the textfield is currently the digit 6, while the smartphone might need the input, COM6. This issue was investigated, but found unlikely. The reason for this was there was found a conversion from COM6 to only the input 6 in one of the classes available in the PocketGPS library. A part from this, no reasonable explanation could be brought forward to help solving the communication problem.

5.1.10

Main Application: Interface and Implementation

The main application for the Mobile Tourist Guide is kept as simple as possible, both when it comes to interface and also code structure. The interface is showed below to the left and displays the main interface for the guide.

Fig.5-6: Interface MTG

Fig. 5-7:Structure of menu

Fig.5-8: Get Coordinates

The main menu is situated to the right and has four options available: GetMap, Get Coordinates, Help and About. Each of the choices on the menu is connected to an eventmethod in the code, which executes methods when the menu item is clicked. For instance, if option 1 is chosen, GetMap, an event called menuItem3_Click is called and this triggers a series of events that loads the map of a piece of the Glasgow city centre. To be able to display the map, a method, pictureBox1_ParentChanged_1, where the map is

57

loaded by creating an object of the Bitmap- class containing the path to where the picture is situated. Example:
Bitmap map = new Bitmap(@"\Storage\Program Files\GetWebsite\MapCityCenter2.bmp");

However, the most important event is when the menu item, Get Coordinates, is clicked. This event calls the largest method in the Mobile Tourist Guide application called, Webfetch(). This method is absolutely crucial for the connection between the server side and the client side of the Mobile Tourist Guide. This method fetches a web page using the classes,
HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse. HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse are in the Compact Framework, what can be called

Pluggable Protocols (Fox and Box, 2004). Pluggable protocols are a layered and extensible mechanism and is a class built on the basis of the abstract classes in the System.Net namespace. The concrete classes inherit from the abstract classes and are registered as supporting a specific protocol. The method WebRequest.Create()returns the registered class concerning that protocol and in this case a URL is situated here and passed into the Createmethod. This URL has a HTTP prefix and the only pluggable set in the compact framework is the HTTP methods HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse. These inherit from
WebRequest and WebResponse.

When the Webfetch()- method is called, this triggers the loading of a website processed by the methods described above. This website is situated on the server side of the system and contains a list of who is in the system/group and their current positions. The server side of the system will be described in the next section. However, to be able to process the data from the list and eventually situate the positions on a map, regular expressions were used taking advantage of the RegEx class in C#. Regular expressions allow certain parts of the output to be excluded and in this case to get a clean and parseable output, both HTML tags and eventually all text and punctuation were removed by creating patterns and filtering the input.
string pattern = @"<(.|\n)*?>"; string pattern1 =@"[^:,0-9]";

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string x = "", y = ""; tempString = Regex.Replace(tempString,pattern,string.Empty); tempString = Regex.Replace(tempString,pattern1,string.Empty);

The declaration of the string variables introduces the different patterns of regular expressions and the input that contains the information from the website, tempString, is processed and the parts that matches the patterns of regular expressions are being set to empty. After the unnecessary information is removed using regular expressions, the information from the website needs to be processed so it can be converted into coordinates on the map. To do this, the coordinates must be broken down into substrings and processed one coordinate at a time. To break down the input, a for- loop is introduced together with a counter and also the input is read into a charArray.
char[] ca = tempString.ToCharArray(); int start = 0, end = 0; for(int j = 0; j < ca.Length; j ++) { if (ca[j] == ':') start = j+1; else if(ca[j] == ',') end = j; x = tempString.Substring(start, end-1); substrings y = tempString.Substring(end+1); } //breakes down to //loop to display x=what is after colon, y= after comma //charArray to store the strings

The coordinates are then being parsed to integers and stored in an ArrayList. The ArrayList make it easier to handle the values and extract them for conversion to fit on the map. The ArrayList is declared in the top section of the MTG-class together with the struct, coord.
ArrayList GPScoord = new ArrayList ( ); GPScoords //arraylist to store the

int xCord = int yCord =

int.Parse(x); int.Parse(y);

//parse into integers //create a new instance of coord

coord thePosn = new coord(); thePosn.x = xCord; thePosn.y = yCord;

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GPScoord.Add(thePosn);

//populate the ArrayList

// continue building the string for ready processed output build.Append(tempString + "\n"); build.Append(xCord + "\n");// build.Append(yCord);

To be able to get any coordinates on the map, the ArrayList has to be populated and this is done when the menu item, Get Coordinates are chosen. This must therefore be done before the GetMap option is chosen. The page containing the coordinates is loaded by using GPRS and to display the information on the smartphone, MessageBox.Show(build.ToString()); is used.

5.1.11

Coordination Plotting and Graphical Programming

When the array belonging to the Webfetch()-method is populated, the option GetMap on the main menu can be pressed and the map will be loaded on to the screen. The map used is borrowed from the yellow pages12 and displays a small part of the Glasgow city centre. When the option is clicked, this creates a new instance of the object,Bitmap(),and the image, situated in the same folder as where the rest of the application is stored on the smartphone, is loaded and displayed:
Bitmap map = new Bitmap(@"\Storage\ProgramFiles\GetWebsite\MapCityCenter2.bmp"); pictureBox1.Image = map;

To be able to draw shapes on the canvas, a new event called MTG_Paint(),was created.
private void MTG_Paint(object sender,System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs e) {}

This method makes it possible to use methods from the Graphics-class that has different facilities implemented. To be able to draw anything at all, a pen must be declared to have a tool to draw with. For each new set of coordinates available this pen will theoretically draw an ellipsoid that will display the different users in situated on the map.
Graphics g = e.Graphics; Pen pen = new Pen(Color.Black); coord cd = new coord(); this.BringToFront();

12

www.yell.co.uk

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for(int i = 0; i < GPScoord.Count; i++) { cd = (coord)GPScoord[i]; g.DrawEllipse(pen,cd.x,cd.y,50,50); }

This piece of code coord cd = new coord(); creates a new instance of the struct coord(), that has been declared in the top section of the class. This struct contains two variables to handle the latitude and the longitude coordinates. This will populate and array called GPScoord, which will handle the storage of the coordinates. The array will be populated in a for-loop and this will then draw the ellipsoids mentioned above.
this.BringToFront() will bring the drawing to the front and the ellipsoids will be drawn

on the top of the map and display the users positions. While the method where the map is loaded, the similar structure, this.SendToBack(), will send the map to the background.
this.Invalidate() is also situated where the map is loaded and will repaint the screen each

time it is run and call the event MTG_Paint(). However, what seemed to be a problem when the application was run was the drawing not being sent to the front and the map was not being sent to the back. This caused problems and the ellipsoids were drawn on the canvas behind the map. If the map were minimised or removed, the points marking the coordinates would appear, but not on top of the map. To solve the problem a new method called, OnPaint(), was tried out. This method was populated with the same input as the MTG_Paint() event, but did not give the desired result and the initial dot was still situated underneath the map.

5.2.

SERVER

5.2.1 PHP and MySQL

The server side of this system contains a MySQL database that contains a table, GUIDE, which again contains 4 rows, G_username, X_coord, Y_coord and G_TimeDate. These fields 61

contain information about who is in the system, where they are and at which time they were there. The table is connected to a PHP- website that connects the client and the server side of the system. This website is downloaded by the C# application located in the client. The URL downloaded contains PHP code that initiates who the user is and the users current position. This is extracted from the URL in the code of the website and inserted into the database where the current date and time are added. The content of the table is again extracted and displayed as a list on the website, which again is processed and displayed on the smartphone. Three lines of code are being used to capture the information in the URL, three similar $_GET functions, where the new variable names are displayed to the right.
$u = $_GET["u"]; $x = $_GET["x"]; $y = $_GET["y"];

When the required information needed is captured, it is inserted into the MySQL database using a query and the variable names that were created above. In addition to this, a variable called, $datetime, were created to ensure the time and date the entry into the database were made.
$query = "insert into GUIDE values('$u','$x','$y','$datetime')"; $result = mysql_query($query);

To make sure that it is impossible for a user to enter the same name and details twice, an update statement was developed to update the database. This will ensure not more than one entry per user and also if the positions of the user are altered, the name will stay the same and the positions in the database will be updated.
$query1 = "update GUIDE set G_username = '$u', X_coord = '$x', Y_coord = '$y' where G_username = '$u'"; $result1 = mysql_query($query1);

When the information is captured and processed, it is fetched and displayed dynamically on the screen as a list.

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Fig.5-9: PHP output in Internet Explorer The output on the smartphone will look similar to the above figure if no regular expressions are added to process the code.

5.2.2 HTML
It is important to keep the server side as simple as possible. The reason for this is to ease the smartphones processing time, which will gain the system. When the HTML source of the PHP page is displayed, we can see that it only contain 4 tags with belonging end-tags. This is also to improve the speed of the system and saves processing time.

Fig.5-10: Simple HTML

5.3

Client- and Server- side issues

The basic code to retrieve a website and the server side coding on the website in PHP, did not cause any larger problems. However, before a website could be connected to the database the problem regarding secure connection had to be solved. Exceptions occurred when deploying the C# code, the reason was due to the ability to access the database from outside the university network is not possible unless the messagebox is

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manually clicked and diverts to the secure area. This messagebox caused problems and changes had to be made in the account set-up so the messagebox could be bypassed without any interaction from the user. When the server side PHP- code was designed and the basic features were introduced to the code, a new problem occurring was a lower level problem between PHP and the C#. This caused the emulator in Visual Studio to crash and it was not possible to test either code or applications. The cause the problem seemed to be the browser storing old data and it kept on crashing the program. After refreshing and trying different links, the browser would open the URL, insert the data represented in the URL into the database and extract the data and display it as a list without any problems. The problems vanished when deploying the application on the smartphone, but when deploying in the emulator in Visual Studio .NET, the problems were still present. This left the testing of the application to the smartphone and not the emulator. The issues appearing while trying to draw the coordinates was unexpected, since there were methods that were supposed to handle the different situations. What was discovered where that functionalities like setting an image to the background, was disabled in the .NET Compact Framework. Another line of course that was investigated was to make the map transparent. This was possible, but due to the shortage of time, the topic remained investigated, but untried. What could have been the solution to the transparency issue, was to introduce image attributes, ImageAttributes attr = new ImageAttributes(). Drawing an image with transparency requires an ImageAttributes object, which specifies the transparent colour. At the moment, the .NET Compact Framework supports source colour key transparency of a single colour13 and it remains unclear if this means that it is the drawings that are being made transparent or if a loaded image can be converted over to become transparent.

13

http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/understanding/netcf/FAQ/default.aspx#2.4

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6.0 Evaluation and Results

This chapter will analyse the overall result of the development of the Mobile Tourist Guide and what the outcome of the project is. Testing will be documented and the limitations of the prototype will also be discussed, together with a summary of the general outcome of the market survey. The Mobile Tourist Guide has a bright future if the conditions are right and the financial support for research is provided. A section concerning the mobile tourist guides future will be presented to describe ideas on how the future work can be carried out.

6.1

The Final System with Development issues

The prototype of the Mobile Tourist Guide was developed to aim towards both individual travellers and tourists travelling in groups. From the survey conducted during the development of the system, the overall result showed the majority of people that participated in the survey travelled either together with friends or with a partner, which could therefore be referred to as a group (more than one person). However, the Mobile Tourist Guide can also be suited for larger groups of tourists. The final outcome of the development of the prototype shows that it is possible for a large group of people to have an overview of where other members of the group are situated. To be able to do this they must all use the same software, the Mobile Tourist Guide, and in this case update their position to the same website, which inserts the data into the database. The prototype converts the coordinates into coordinates fitted on to a map and this displays the users location. The server side of the system is functioning well, but the client side of the system has experienced some problems that have been difficult to overcome within the limited time that was available to develop this type of software. The main and also the first problem that occurred was the communication between the NAVMAN Bluetooth GPS receiver and the Orange SPV E200 smartphone. The alphanumerical PIN, that was embedded in the GPS receiver, made it impossible to pair the devices and also as an outcome of that, to receive any GPS signals. The problem seemed to be solved by changing the GPS receiver to the EMTAC CRUX II. The devices paired perfectly due to the digit passkey (PIN) that was embedded in the receiver. However, after the testing software for receiving GPS coordinates was developed, problems with reading and connecting to the correct comport occurred and once

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again hindered the communication flow between the devices. This problem was closely investigated and different strategies were tried out to make the communication flow as intended. The software developed for GPS testing, had a manual input from the user regarding which comport to choose. This solution was discarded by hard coding comport number 6 into the software, as described in the section Software Implementation and Development. This method did not give any results and it was suspected that the reason for the problem could be that the input should be COM6. This was also tested on the software, but gave no results. Due to the time constraints GPS communication had to be discarded and to simulate GPS, fixed coordinates were used to plot locations on the map. The user interface is clean and concise, which is an important feature when it comes to design of software systems. The colour theme in the Mobile Tourist Guide is set to royal blue to represent the colours in Scotlands flag and also to represent authority and trust, which is an important impression to give to the user. The menu system is easy and the user understands what to do out from the names on the menu options. The software itself is displaying the users coordinates and also loads a map of a selected section of Glasgow city centre. The client side of the system is connected up to the server side and the information given from the server side scripted web page (PHP) is processed by the software developed in C#. The web page is downloaded into the smartphone, processed and filtered so that the relevant information can be extracted, which is the coordinates. The coordinates are parsed into integers and a circle is plotted on the screen. However, the issue that appeared regarding plotting on the map was the lack of a BackgroundImage option. This option is available in the .NET Framework, but has been removed from the options in the .NET Compact Framework. When the coordinate was plotted on the screen, the canvas that was used for plotting was underneath the map. To transform the map in to a transparent map was one option that was available and also to use a method, onPaint() which should in theory paint ontop of what was situated on the screen. Either method functioned as it in theory should do and the dot was situated in the right spot according to the coordinates, but could not be visible unless the map was removed.

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When the code was to be extended to handle more than one set of coordinates from the database, an unexpected exception appeared and the arrays seemed to be out of bound. This was due to the parsing and only one set of coordinates could be parsed at a time. The solution to this problem was to extend a for-loop, but the results did not appear in the format that was expected. The overall experience with the final system is the base for a group-aware mobile tourist guide. This has been developed and the system works satisfactorily, if the problems regarding GPS communication and the lack of a transparent map are discounted. Problems that appeared towards the end of the development presented a particular challenge to sort out due to the time constraint. Communication issues concerning the GPS receiver created a hard nut to crack and required quite some time towards the end of the project: research to solve the problems; and also contact with the manufacturer of the NAVMAN GPS receiver in New Zealand.

6.2

System Limitations

The Mobile Tourist Guide is a system that can experience several limitations, both concerning software and hardware. The limitations experienced during the development of this prototype, was connected to the GPS issues and the lack of available functions when it comes to the .NET Compact Framework. When a Pocket PC and a Smartphone are being compared, it can seem that developing software for Pocket PCs might be easier due to the screen size and also due to some features that have been disabled when the Smartphone 2003 SDK was embedded. However, the functionalities are diverse but limited in the SDK and the Visual .NET 2003 is a tool that are amazingly well functioning when developing software for Microsoft Windows based systems, both when it comes to debugging and suggested code given by the development tool. Systems using GPS can normally have problems regarding the receivers request of having three or four satellites in sight to get accurate location data. This is due to the landscape in the current area and for cities like Glasgow, tall buildings and narrow streets can block out the GPS signal. There is however a solution regarding this problem available in the near future. The new AGPS (Assisted GPS) technology describes a system where outside sources, such as an assistance server and reference network, help a GPS receiver perform the tasks required to

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make range measurements and position solutions14. This will almost eliminate the problems regarding loss of GPS signal. If this technology were available today, the problems experienced with the Mobile Tourist Guide regarding GPS connectivity would not be present. The AGPS technology would be implemented in the Smartphone from the manufacturer and the now external and slightly bulky GPS receiver would have been made redundant. This would eliminate both the problems concerning loss of signal and also eliminate one node in the communication flow, the Bluetooth connection between the GPS receiver and the Smartphone.

6.3

Market Survey

The market survey reflects how a system like a Mobile Tourist Guide would be accepted in the market and also what the public would prefer in terms of facilities implemented in the system. The results of the survey were a mixture of some rather surprising results and also some results that were expected. In general the majority of the participants in the survey were positive and open minded about trying new technology and some were especially excited about the size and functionality of a mobile tourist guide. The reason for this excitement was the main disadvantage of size and weight with the traditional maps and especially guidebooks, and also the fact that guidebooks get very quickly outdated. A Mobile Tourist Guide would eliminate large rucksacks filled with heavy books and maps that are hard to fold. However, the disadvantage mentioned regarding the electronic version of maps and guidebooks, the mobile tourist guide, was the price of the device and the software, and also if the software could be adapted to new markets and groups of users, like the elderly and children. A concern that is present in the general opinion is the cost of the system, but also the cost of losing the device. The traditional guidebooks and maps are rather cheap and easy to replace, while an electronic device is considered more of an investment. The overall impression of the survey is positive, but the female part of the participants is more sceptical towards new technology and to technology in general. The attitude in favour of the Mobile Tourist Guide can in some cases be reflected in how well- educated the women are, while in other cases the well-educated women are more negative towards the technology. One of the female participants stated: Technology is preferable at work, while being holiday I
would like to leave the technology back in the office. (Appendix A, Section 6)
14

http://www.gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=12287 [Last accessed: 12.09.05]

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For the male part of the participants the overall attitude towards technology was positive, however there were some men who had similar opinions like the lady who preferred to leave technology behind while going on holiday. The males seemed to be more aware of the technology available and are also more positive when usage of such systems are considered. This reflects some old fashion opinions when it comes to female v. male and the battle of interest around technology. However, the results from the survey also reflect a piece of reality.

6.4

Black Box Testing and Reverse Engineering

Black Box testing was carried out to test the applications functionality. The focus of Black box testing, is to investigate the I/O behaviour and if the result can be predicted for all output, the module passes the test. The testcases illustrates input, the output will be investigated and a conclusion drawn. The testing will commence after the user has opened the first and introductory page of the application. TESTCASES: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: User press main menu Main menu pops up with 4 options available It is possible to press the main menu and select one of four options. User selects GetMap A clean map loads Map is displayed without coordinates plotted User selects Quit Application exits The application exits if quit is clicked, even though the map is still visible. User selects menu menu pops up with 4 alternatives Back to initial menu stage and map is static on the screen User selects Get Coordinates Coordinates are being downloaded and displayed User coordinates have been downloaded User selects OK

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Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: Input: Output: Conclusion: PSEUDO CODE:

Application back to startup screen, but with map displayed Coordinates are available User selects Help Guidance tips given Help function displayed User selects About Information about application is given Displays a textbox containing text User selects Get map Map with drawing sticking out on the side Coordinates given and plotted, but map is on top of drawing. User selects Quit Application terminates End of program

I. If mainmenu is chosen II. Display main menu III. If GetMap is chosen IV. Load map V. Else Quit VI. If GetCoordinates is chosen VII. Load web page containing coordinates VIII. Ok is pressed IX. Else Quit X. If Help is chosen XI. Textbox containing guidance is displayed XII. Ok is pressed XIII. If About is chosen XIV. Textbox containing information about software is displayed XV. Press ok XVI. If GetMap is chosen XVII. Coordinates painted on the canvas XVIII. Else Quit 70

The Black box testing illustrates how the system flows and that the options available are easy to understand and the interface is clear to the user.

6.5

Summary

The prototype that has been developed during the work of this thesis makes a good basis for future development. The Mobile Tourist Guide has a large market potential, which is reflected in the market survey and the problems that arose during the development would have been possible to solve if more time had been available for research and software development. Some of the problems, like the GPS connectivity would even get eliminated if the new AGPS technology was available on the market today. The system has some limitations concerning screen size and development tool issues, however both hardware and tools will improve with time and the limitations might be reduced in a few years from today.

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7.0 Future Work

This chapter will discuss how the Mobile Tourist Guide can be further developed from the stage it has been left. The future of context- and group- aware systems are bright and the technology is improving every day to fit users needs and to fulfil constantly more demanding requirements from both users and developers. This will give mobile systems a possibility to blossom if the conditions concerning timing, marketing and price are right.

7.1

Extended Market Survey

The use of the market survey gives an important pointer towards what the general public would prefer in a Mobile Tourist Guide. This can be used to investigate not only interest, but also, if the survey is done in advance, the system can be adapted to what the participants in the survey would like it to contain. It would be a good idea to extend the survey to cover more participants to get a wider insight and also to get results that are more accurate and statistically correct.

7.2

Navigation

The future Mobile Tourist Guide will have extended features in all sections and the there is a large potential in development. One of the main issues regarding the Mobile Tourist Guide is the possibility of navigation and guidance using electronic maps. The current implementation of the Mobile Tourist Guide use a regular image as a map, borrowed from the yellow pages. The map can be improved to contain a variety of different views the user can choose between. It is important to give the user the possibility to choose what is most suitable and a list of options could be available. The map can have birds-eye view, a ground-level view (pedestrian) or an option where the user can chose how high up he or she would like to hover above ground. The dot illustrating the users position will be present on the map, and also it could be useful to draw a line to illustrate where the user has been and possible routes the user can go. Routes that have already been walked can be colour coded to avoid confusion with the routes that are possible to walk. The system can welcome the user back to places that have already been visited more than once and a useful facility can be to space out landmarks that are easy to recognize. This feature can make users more secure so it is more certain that they are not lost.

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7.3

Group awareness

The future system will extend the focus towards group awareness and add features like instant messaging between the members of the group and extended sharing of experience between the group members. If the user is travelling with a human guide and within an organized group, the guide can have master control over the group and the guide has an overview over everyone in the group on the Smartphone. The guide can have the possibility to send out a joint message to the whole group (i.e. departure times of bus or boat, changes in schedule, etc.) or send a message to specific members of the group who are moving too far away from the group when departure time for bus/boat/new location is approaching. When it comes to privacy issues, an idea taken from the instant messenger MSN Messenger, have been transferred into being used in the Mobile Tourist Guide. The group members can set their settings to invisible, and be invisible to both the guide and to the rest of the group. The invisible member of the group will still be able to see the rest of the group, in case there is a wish to follow the guided group tour again. Both visible and invisible members in the group can spot the group members that have their settings set to visible mode.

7.4

Introducing user modes

The use of different modes can be introduced to adapt the system to different needs and to different users. The software must have at least 3 different modes that can cover most of the users that can possibly take advantage of using the system. The three different modes that can be introduced are: @ @ @ Kids Mode Normal Mode (for people with no impairments) Special needs Mode (for people with i.e. visual impairments or elder people)

Normal mode and Special Needs mode, do both have three substructures that are called: Self Exploration Mode, Personalized Mode and Tell me everything Mode. Self Exploration Mode is a setting where the only information given, is the necessary information from group members or the guide. This information will be given if the status on the device is set to Visible or the human guide overrides the system and announces a joint message. The system itself will not provide the user with information, because the user is now 73

exploring using the device only as a map for guidance. If the status is set to invisible, only emergency messages will reach the user. Personalized Mode, will only present the things that are in the users interest. Emergency messages will reach the user regardless of the status on the phone, but in general the visible/invisible issues presented above in Self Exploration Mode are activated. In Tell me Everything Mode, all relevant information that the system contains, is given to the user. This mode will give a lot information and the user should not be in a hurry since nothing is left to chance and the user is guided from A to Z. Emergency messages will naturally reach the user as described in the previous modes. The visible/invisible issues will also be present in this mode. The system will use an instant messaging system between the different members of the group. To be able to send and receive messages, the user must be visible in the system (not set as invisible). It is important to be open about who is sending and who is receiving to try and pass problems regarding withheld identity. The system will know where everyone in the group is, regardless if they are visible or not. In case of emergency or disappearance of one of the group members, the guide can then override the system and locate the missing or ill person. To avoid guides with mastercontrols to misuse this feature, limitations must be introduced to this issue.

7.5

Utility

The system can take advantage of pop up messages that informs where the user is and what the user can see. The information should be personalized after the users wish, but there must be a possibility to dig more into the topic if the user finds something of interest. Example: The user walks through an art gallery and finds interest in Monet and Picasso. The user would like to view the pictures painted by these specific painters and the system directs the user towards them. On the way through the gallery the user can get pop ups that informs about other painters, which could be a brief summary and the possibility of making a choice. The message can be formed like this:
You are now walking past a wonderful national romantic picture, painted by Gude, showing traditional Norwegian scenery.

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Would you like to know more about the Norwegian national romantic poque and its painters and paintings? YES or NO

The user can then choose out of interest and have a look if that is desirable. If the user gets truly interested, the topic can be added to a personalized account and stored in a database for later use.

7.6

User Interface

The design must be clear and clean and the ability to use the system easily and understand quickly is important. It could be an advantage to use an interface that is familiar to users initially, like the initial used Windows framework. This is on the other hand something that can be discussed. The design must be, as mentioned, clear and easy, and the different menus and pages must not be overloaded with information. The less information on a page the better it is. Concise and concrete menus and pop ups that leave no doubt what their meanings are.

7.7

Technology

The system must be able to cope with both indoor and outdoor transmitting and receiving. AGPS is the newest technology that is available in the immediate future and this technology bypasses most issues concerning using GPS indoor. If AGPS is not available, the system can use regular GPS for outdoor usage and WLAN or Bluetooth for indoor usage. Bluetooth is cheap and the devices are small, which could be advantage. An assumption must be made if this should be available for the majority in the future, which is that the phones in use must be the Pocket PC Phone editions or Smartphones. These phones use a familiar frameset (Windows), but this can, if preferable, be changed and new the software can be adapted to fit new platforms. 7.8 Problems and Questions

When people travel with good friends and even alone, there is the issue concerning being open and to get to know new people. It is important not to isolate the tourist inside a mobile tourist guide, with earplugs and total devotion to the system. This will destroy the social experience around travelling. We must take in to consideration the preservation of the sensory aspects the feeling and exploring and travelling. A part of being a tourist is to hear, smell, look and listen and it is therefore important not to make the tourist an isolated, asocial and unreachable individual.

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The device should preferably be apart of the users everyday life and the usage of it be natural. This will make the job of purchasing the Mobile Tourist Guide easier when it fits onto a device that is already a part of the users life. The guide can also be used by the younger generation (children and youth) in Kids Mode. This can solve the problem for parents who need to shepherd their children in fear of loosing them. When some groups of parents are asked after a visit in i.e. a museum, the only thing they remembered were the children running around and not the experience and the sights from the museum. But the questions that can jeopardise this feature are: What if the child loses the device and the parents trust the system and leave the child unattended? The child will still appear on the parents screen as a little dot, but this will be the device and not the child. 7.9 Marketing suggestions

The Mobile Tourist Guide software should be available for all pocket PCs /Phones and hopefully in the future AGPS will be implemented as standard hardware in the majority of phones and pocket PCs. A cheaper version could be available for indoor use (if AGPS is not implemented on the device). This package requires only Bluetooth or WLAN and is the basic package. The outdoor package is an extension on the indoor package and the system can be bought as a whole or the two separate packages. Concerning the maps, the idea used for marketing and selling the GPS maps available for cars, can be used. An example on this is when GPS maps are being purchased, different areas can be chosen. Maps covering the continent, a separate map for UK and Ireland and another for Scandinavia can be purchased. The main idea can be to do the same for the maps for the Mobile Tourist Guide. The software should be updated frequently and a new edition should be available every year. This can be purchased on a separate basis or be subscribed, i.e. like the new software for Norton Antivirus can be bought online.

7.10 Summary
If the work with the Mobile Tourist Guide were to be continued as a research project for one more year, the main task would be to be able to connect the device to GPS and get a flow of communication in the system. The algorithms used to convert the coordinates must be improved and the user interface could be further developed to contain more of the ideas mentioned above. 76

Firstly the market survey should be extended to cover a wider range of people, so the statistical result could be more accurate. The survey should be carried out before further development, because the future users opinions should be taken into consideration while developing the new and improved system. Secondly, the maps should be improved to be more scalable and from that point the different modes could be developed. If the modes were successful, the next step would be to introduce the sub functions within each mode. To implement all the functionalities mentioned above, the project would last much longer than a year, but the Mobile Tourist Guide has a large potential and it is likely to believe, even though there are no documentation on this issue, that the functionalities mentioned above would be popular if the software became available on the market.

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8.0 Conclusion
This thesis describes how to proceed and develop the base of a mobile tourist guide, which has its main focus on group-awareness. The aim for the development of this prototype was to make an application that included a client, a server and communication between the nodes. The application was aimed to process data downloaded from the servers web page and process the received data so it could be converted into coordinates fitted on to a map. This would initially illustrate the different users and their positions and in theory these coordinates was received via GPS. The aims were partially fulfilled, but problems concerning GPS connectivity were a drawback on the development, and other solutions had to be sought to simulate the end result. However, what could be an ideal solution would be to have the new AGPS system available. This would bypass any connectivity or compatibility problems and this part of the project would have gone much smoother. The market survey was carried out to increase the knowledge around how tourists would welcome technology into their holidays and also if there was a general interest for software similar to the Mobile Tourist Guide. The survey covered an area there seemed to be little data available and according to the literature researched, the focus in the survey was therefore sat on group- awareness and also what kind of facilities people would prefer the mobile tourist guide to contain. The survey can be considered a success and interesting results appeared, however it can be questioned if the survey was large enough to give accurate statistical results. The development of the software itself, aimed to give the user a simple interface that could easily be used. The end result has a clean and concise interface where the options available point directly to the action connected to them. The problems experienced during the software development, gave the opportunity to extended research within C#, which illustrated that some functions that was under the opinion of being available, was not available in the .NET Compact Framework. This gave unexpected problems that started a lengthy search for solutions towards the end of the project. Some problems were therefore solved while others appeared. 78

The overall impression of the development of the Mobile Tourist Guide is that this prototype is a base for a product that can be extended almost to the infinite if the time is available. The future work can be an important pointer towards further development and the ideas presented are fully achievable.

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Last accessed: 13.04.05 Available: abowd-97.pdf Abowd, G.D., C.G. Atkeson, J.I. Hong, S. Long, R. Kooper, and M. Pinkerton, Cyberguide: A Mobile Context-Aware Tour Guide. ACM Wireless Networks 1997. 3(5): p. 421-433. Last accessed: 13.04.05 Available: abowd-97.pdf http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/courses/mobwear/resources/p421http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/courses/mobwear/resources/p421-

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Chanan Gabay (2004). M-ToGuide: Warm welcome for mobile guides fro tourists.
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Last accessed: 27.08.05 Available: http://istresults.cordis.lu/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/594 28 Chanan Gabay (2004). M-ToGuide:warm welcome for mobile guides for tourists.
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Last accessed: 28.08.05 Available:http://istresults.cordis.lu/index.cfm/section/news/Tpl/article/BrowsingType/Shor t%20Feature/ID/59428/highlights/Warm+Welcome Chanan Gabay (2004). M-ToGuideProject. Information Society Technologies. Last accessed: 28.08.05 Available: http://www.motorolatele.com/MOTOnow/ Cheverst, Davies, Mitchell and Friday. The Role of Connectivity in Supporting ContextSensitive Applications.

Last accessed: 13.04.05 Available: http://www.guide.lancs.ac.uk/RoleOfConnectivity.pdf Cheverst, K., Davies, N., Mitchell, K., Friday, A., In Hans-W Gellersen. The Role of Connectivity in Supporting Context-Sensitive Applications. editor, HUC99, International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing, Karlsruhe, Germany, September 27-29 1999. Published by Springer-Verlag as Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 1707, pages 193-207.. Last accessed: 13.04.05 Available: http://www.guide.lancs.ac.uk/RoleOfConnectivity.pdf Davies, Cheverst, Mitchell and Efrat.Using and determining location in a context-sensitive tour guide: THE GUIDE EXPERIENCE. Last accessed: 13.04.05. Available: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~km/papers/IEEE_Computer_Special_Issue.pdf 81

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Hunholstein and Zipf. Towards task oriented map-based mobile guides. Last accessed: 28.08.05 Available: http://www.i3mainz.fh-mainz.de/publicat/mobileHci03/zipf-hunolstein-task-

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APPENDICES

85

APPENDIX A
ANALYSIS OF SURVEY

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Analysis of Survey
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 and also a few were handed out on the ISEC conference held at the University of Strathclyde in early August. 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 have been taken into consideration, due to that the topic investigated are modern and there can 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 elder in what a mobile tourist guide should contain. The questionnaire is divided into 13 different questions and 6 sections. The 3 first questions make Section 1 and are demographic questions, which concern gender, age and occupation. However, the gender and age are the most important questions in this section. Peoples occupation can merely reflect their education and social status, which can be mirrored in how they answer the questions. The next section, Section 2, concerns reflecting peoples interest in general in the system. How many would consider using the system if it became available and also what they would like the system to contain. Section 3 is more aimed towards group awareness and how many travel in groups and what type of group they travel in. The fourth section, Section 4, concerns 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. 87

Section 5 is questioning if people would trust a mobile tourist guide and the reason for their answer if it were negative. This is to be able to fetch any opinions about 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 section, Section 6, is reserved for comments from the participants in the survey. This can be very useful to show any questions and/or doubts the participant can have about the system. An example can be: How will the system work indoor?

Section 1 Gender and Age

This section represents how many males and females have participated in the survey and how well the different groups of age are represented.
Age division between MALE and FEMALE participants
100 % 90 % 80 % 70 % 60 % 50 % 40 % 30 % 20 % 10 % 0%

13 % 26 % 11,32 % 28 % 21 % 0% MALE %

7 14 6 15 11 0 Number of responses

17,02 % 23,40 % 8,51 % 21,27 % 23,40 % 6,40 % FEMALE %

8 11 4 10 11 3 Number of responses 55+ 46-55 36-45 26-35 18-25 >18

Age %

This diagram shows the differences between the groups of age and how some are better represented than others. The percentages in the male column are calculated out of the total number of males participating, which is 53 and represents 53% of the participants in the survey. The 53 % are in the diagram represented as the 100% male group, where the age groups are represented in different colours according to how much percentage they represent. Out of the diagram the age group 26-35 is best represented with 28 % of the males. However, the age group, less than 18 (>18), are not present at all in the male group.

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The same principle is used for the female column. The females are 47 out of 100 participants and represents 47 % of the total number of participants. The 47 % are then represented as 100 % and the age groups are represented as a percentage out of the total number of females participating. All the groups of age are present in the female group, also the group under 18 years old. The diagram shows that for females the largest represented age group is divided between the group 18-25 and the group 46 55. Both groups have 23,4% of the participants. When it comes to the overall impression of the diagram the age group 36 45 are not well represented in either male or female group. The reason for this can be that this group often have small children and do not prefer to go on city holidays.

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Occupation
The different occupations represented in the questionnaires are very diverse. For males some of the stereotypical male professions like joiner and lorry driver are presented. 4 out of 53 males decided not to answer the question, which is 7,6 % of the total number.
Age >18 18-25 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

26-35

36-45

46-55

55+

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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 % 20 % 0% No Answer % NO% YES % MALE >18 0 0 0 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 0 1,9 18,7 1,9 5,7 20,7 0 0 11,3 1,9 1,9 22,6 55+ 0 0 13,2 No Answer % NO% YES %

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% >18 No Answer % NO% YES % 0 1825 0 2635 1,9 3645 0 4655+ 55 0 0 No Answer % NO% YES %

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% >18 No Answer % NO% YES % 0 0 3 1825 0 5 17 2635 2 7 16 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. 3645 0 0 9 4655+ 55 1 2 22 0 4 11 No Answer % NO% YES %

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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 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 Attractions and interesting sights Maps Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times) Events/Event locations and times Accommodation (including price details) Price aware places to visit Shopping History of buildings, places and people Shared between: Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums) General info about the city Shared between: Opening hours Road info/accidents/incidents Whats near Child friendly activities and child adapted software (FREQUENCY = 0) CHART FEMALE Shared between: Maps Attractions and interesting sights Pubs/Clubs/Bars/Restaurants 2 3 4 Shared between: Information about public transport (travel info, stops, times) Events/Event locations and times Accommodation (including price details) Shared between: Shopping Opening hours History of buildings, places and people Price aware places to visit Culture (music, arts, architecture, museums) 5 6 7 General info about the city Shared between: Road info/accidents/incidents Child friendly activities and child adapted software Whats 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 Whats 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, 1825 years old, there are 5 categories that are no0t mentioned at all (Road info/accidents/incidents, General info about the city, Culture, Whats 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, Whats 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, Whats 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, Whats 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 groups economy and the majoritys 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, Whats 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 Whats 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 %

%
40 %

Always Often Sometimes Never

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 0 0 0 0 3 4 4 0 3 7 4 1 0 3 3 0 3 4 7 0 2 1 4 0 2 0 1 0 2 5 4 0 2 0 8 0 0 0 3 1 0 2 9 0 1 3 3 1

Age

Always Often Sometimes Never

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 womens 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 80 % Partner Group of Friends Bustours 60 % % 40 %

20 % Age 0%
No Answer Other Partner Group of Friends Bustours MAL E FEM >18 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 55+ Sum: ALE 0 1 0 2 0 0 2 1 8 0 0 2 1 6 1 1 1 0 0 2 0 3 0 7 1 2 0 1 4 1 3 9 3 27 5

>18 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 55+ Sum: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 10 0 1 3 3 8 0 0 1 1 3 1 1 2 7 1 3 0 0 3 3 1 2 6 15 25 5

% 3,80 % 11,30 % 28,30 % 47,20 % 9,40 %

% 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%

2%

YES, maps and guidebooks 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 % of total male group FEMALE Response ratio % of total male group

YES 36 67,90 % 20 42,60 %

NO 8 15,10 % 15 31,90 %

MAYBE 8 15,10 % 6 12,80 %

NO ANSWER 1 1,90 % 6 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 % NO ANSWER

23 %

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

4%

11 %

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 participants personal opinions and overall impression of the system.

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MALE: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. People from USA are not as technological enlightened as the Europeans. The mobile tourist guide technology must therefore be adapted to different markets. Excellent! How does this work indoors? Well done! Good stuff! 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. 7. 8. 9. Navigation system Must be updated and reliable Prefer cycling and hiking free of any electronics. This might be a good product for people who are not very fit in English. 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!

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FEMALE: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. I am sure it can interest other people. Price of software Keep the tour guide! Sounds fascinating and would be interesting to try out. Do not think it will replace the maps or the guidebooks. If such technology would become available outside the US, usage would be considered, but probably not. Interesting to find out if the mobile system is an improvement on maps and similar. Not brought up in the technology age. Easily understandable design and affordable by all. No taxing! 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

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Server Code
<html><body><p><pre> <?php $u = $_GET["u"]; $x = $_GET["x"]; $y = $_GET["y"]; $data = mysql_connect(' devweb.cis.strath.ac.uk'fbjornes'eVqlkq3g' ,' ,' ); if(!$data) { echo ' ERROR!Connection failed.' ; exit; } $datetime = date("Y-m-d H:i:s"); $data = mysql_select_db(' fbjornes' ); $query = "insert into GUIDE values(' ,' ,' ,' $u'$x'$y'$datetime' )"; $result = mysql_query($query); $query1 = "update GUIDE set G_username = ' , X_coord = ' , $u' $x' Y_coord = ' where G_username = ' "; $y' $u' $result1 = mysql_query($query1); $query2 = "select * from GUIDE"; $result2 = mysql_query($query2); $num_results = mysql_num_rows($result2);

for($i=0; $i< $num_results; $i++) { $row = mysql_fetch_array($result2); echo $row[' G_username' ]; echo '; :' echo $row[' X_coord' ]; echo'; ,' echo $row[' Y_coord' ]."\n\r"; } //echo ' Your coordinates are:' ."\n\r"; //echo $_GET["u"].":".$_GET["x"].",".$_GET["y"]."\n\r"; ?> </pre></p></body></html> 119

Client side code, C#

using System; using System.Drawing; using System.Collections; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Data; using System.IO; using System.Net; using System.Text; using System.Text.RegularExpressions; //introducing use of regular expressions to ignore HTML-tags. using System.Resources; namespace { /// /// /// GetWebsite <summary> Summary description for Form1. </summary>

public class MTG : System.Windows.Forms.Form { private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItem1; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItem2; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItem3; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItem4; private System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu mainMenu1; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItem5; bool mapClick = false; private System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem menuItem6; private System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox pictureBox1; //boolean to trigger loading of map-image ArrayList GPScoord = new ArrayList ( ); the GPS coordinates public struct coord from GPS input { public int x; public int y; }; //arraylist to store

//struct for coordinates

public MTG() { // // Required for Windows Form Designer support // InitializeComponent(); // // TODO: Add any constructor code after InitializeComponent call // } /// <summary> /// Clean up any resources being used. /// </summary> protected override void Dispose( bool disposing )

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{ base.Dispose( disposing ); } #region Windows Form Designer generated code /// <summary> /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify /// the contents of this method with the code editor. /// </summary> private void InitializeComponent() { System.Resources.ResourceManager resources = new System.Resources.ResourceManager(typeof(MTG)); this.mainMenu1 = new System.Windows.Forms.MainMenu(); this.menuItem1 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem(); this.menuItem2 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem(); this.menuItem3 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem(); this.menuItem4 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem(); this.menuItem6 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem(); this.menuItem5 = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem(); this.pictureBox1 = new System.Windows.Forms.PictureBox(); // // mainMenu1 // this.mainMenu1.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem1); this.mainMenu1.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem2); // // menuItem1 // this.menuItem1.Text = "Quit"; this.menuItem1.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuItem1_Click); // // menuItem2 // this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem3); this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem4); this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem6); this.menuItem2.MenuItems.Add(this.menuItem5); this.menuItem2.Text = "Menu"; this.menuItem2.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuItem2_Click); // // menuItem3 // this.menuItem3.Text = "GetMap"; this.menuItem3.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuItem3_Click); // // menuItem4 // this.menuItem4.Text = "Get Coordinates"; this.menuItem4.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuItem4_Click); // // menuItem6 // this.menuItem6.Text = "Help"; // // menuItem5 // this.menuItem5.Text = "About";

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this.menuItem5.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.menuItem5_Click); // // pictureBox1 // this.pictureBox1.Image = ((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("pictureBox1.Image"))); this.pictureBox1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(8, 8); this.pictureBox1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(160, 160); this.pictureBox1.SizeMode = System.Windows.Forms.PictureBoxSizeMode.CenterImage; this.pictureBox1.ParentChanged += new System.EventHandler(this.pictureBox1_ParentChanged_2); // // MTG // this.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.RoyalBlue; this.ControlBox = false; this.Controls.Add(this.pictureBox1); this.Icon = ((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("$this.Icon"))); this.Menu = this.mainMenu1; this.Text = "MobileTouristGuide"; this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.Form1_Load); } #endregion /// <summary> /// The main entry point for the application. /// </summary> static void Main() { Application.Run(new MTG()); } private void menuItem1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { this.Close(); } private void menuItem2_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { } public void Webfetch() { //build input StringBuilder build

= new StringBuilder();

//read operation byte[] buff = new byte[8192]; // request page HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)

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WebRequest.Create("http://devweb.cis.strath.ac.uk/~fbjornes/MSc%20pro ject/samplephp.php?u=Donald&x=12&y=123"); // executing request HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse) request.GetResponse(); //read data Stream resStream = response.GetResponseStream(); string tempString = null; int count = 0; do { // fill buffer count = resStream.Read(buff, 0, buff.Length); // test if data is read if (count != 0) { // translate from bytes to ASCII text tempString = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buff, 0, count); string pattern = @"<(.|\n)*?>"; //regular expression to ignore tags string pattern1 =@"[^:,0-9]"; expression to extract numbers and : and , string x = "", y = ""; tempString = Regex.Replace(tempString,pattern,string.Empty); tempString = Regex.Replace(tempString,pattern1,string.Empty); char[] ca = tempString.ToCharArray(); //charArray to store the strings ArrayList start = new ArrayList(); ArrayList end = new ArrayList(); for(int j = 0; j < ca.Length; j ++) //loop to display x=what is after colon, y= after comma { if (ca[j] == ':') start.Add(j+1); else if(ca[j] == ',') end.Add(j+1); 1); //x = tempString.Substring(start, end//breakes down to substrings //y = tempString.Substring(end+1); //x = tempString.Substring(start, end//breakes down to substrings //y = tempString.Substring(end+1); } for (int i = 0; i < start.Count-1; i ++)

//regular

1);

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{ x = tempString.Substring((int)start[i], (int)end[i]-2); build.Append("X " +x +"\n"); if(start[i+1] != null) { int dd = (int)start[i+1]; y = tempString.Substring((int)end[i], dd); build.Append("IF " + dd ); build.Append(" " +y+"\n"); } else { y = tempString.Substring((int)end[i]+2); build.Append("ELSE "); build.Append(" " +y+"\n"); } } /*int xCord = into integers int yCord = int.Parse(y); coord thePosn = new coord(); thePosn.x = xCord; thePosn.y = yCord; GPScoord.Add(thePosn);*/ // continue building the string //build.Append(tempString + "\n"); //build.Append(xCord + "\n");// //build.Append(yCord); } } while (count > 0); Rectangle rc = new Rectangle(0, 0, 200, 200); this.Invalidate(rc); //Displays page MessageBox.Show(build.ToString()); }

int.Parse(x);

//parse

private void menuItem4_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { Webfetch(); } private void pictureBox1_ParentChanged_1(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {

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if(mapClick == true) { //image instance Bitmap map = new Bitmap(@"\Storage\Program Files\GetWebsite\MapCityCenter2.bmp"); pictureBox1.Image = map; } } private void menuItem3_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { //get map here mapClick = true; pictureBox1_ParentChanged_1(sender,e); this.Invalidate(); this.SendToBack(); //OnPaint(System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs pe);

} private void Form1_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { } /*private void MTG_Paint(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs e) { Graphics g = e.Graphics; Pen pen = new Pen(Color.Black); coord cd = new coord(); this.BringToFront(); //g.DrawLine(pen, 0, 0, 500, 500); for(int i = 0; i < GPScoord.Count; i++) { cd = (coord)GPScoord[i]; g.DrawEllipse(pen,cd.x,cd.y,50,50); } }*/ protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs pe) { Graphics g = pe.Graphics; coord cd = new coord(); //this.BringToFront(); // Call the OnPaint method of the base class. base.OnPaint(pe); // Declare and instantiate a new pen. System.Drawing.Pen myPen = new System.Drawing.Pen(Color.HotPink);

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// Draw an aqua rectangle in the rectangle represented by the control. //pe.Graphics.DrawRectangle(myPen, new Rectangle(this.Location,this.Size)); for(int i = 0; i < GPScoord.Count; i++) { cd = (coord)GPScoord[i]; g.DrawEllipse(myPen,cd.x,cd.y,50,50); } } private void menuItem5_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { Console.WriteLine("The MTG prototype has been developed as an MSc project at the University of Strathclyde 2005"); Console.WriteLine("Developer: Fry Birte Bjrneseth"); Console.WriteLine("Supervisor: Dr. Mark Dunlop"); } //private void label1_ParentChanged(object sender, System.EventArgs e) //{ //} private void pictureBox1_ParentChanged(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { } private void pictureBox1_ParentChanged_2(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { }

} }

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