Collaboration in Context-Aware Mobile Phone Applications

In Collaboration in Context-Aware Mobile Phone Applications by Jonna Häkkilä and Jani Mäntyjärvi examine collaboration in relation to context-aware mobile terminals and discuss possibilities on enhancing the collaboration and improving usability of mobile applications if these two technologies are combined.

Dey and Abowd (Towards a Better Understanding of Context and Context-awareness) describe context-awareness to be

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. Context-aware mobile devices have so far been investigated mainly from the technological point of view, examining context-recognition and sensor technologies. Location is probably the most commonly used context attribute.

Computer supported collaboration scenarios divide according to the simultaneousness, and location in time and space (Groupware: some issues and experiences). Mobility is divided into three different forms: locational, operational and interactional mobilities.

There is an interesting reference to conducting the collaborative task and the importance of the infrastructure:

While executing the collaboration task, the contextual questions related to infrastructure become important. Sufficient and stabile network connection is crucial especially in time consuimg tasks. Network coverage may have an effect on communication and delays may occur. A context-aware system can try to prevent unwanted situations by switching appropriate settings or warning the user of critical fluctuations.

Moreover:

When the collaborative task is in process, the infrastructure becomes to play a bigger role, and the system can help the user by being aware and able to respond to crucial changes in network connection, data traffic and prices.

Critical question with context-aware mobile collaborative systems include privacy issues and technological restrictions (small power consumption, network connections, small memory and reduced computation power. To avoid crucial mistakes in application design, the concerns and criticism as well as positive feedback from phone end-users need to be studies.