ZoneZoom is an input technique that lets users traverse large information spaces on smartphones. Our technique ZoneZoom, segments a given view of an information space into nine sub-segments, each of which is mapped to a key on the number keypad of the smartphone. This segmentation can be hand-crafted by the information space author or dynamically created at run-time. ZoneZoom supports “spring-loaded ” view shifting which allows users to easily “glance ” at nearby areas and then quickly return to their current view. Our ZoneZoom technique lets users gain an overview and compare information from different parts of a dataset. SmartPhlow is an optimized application for browsing a map of local-area road traffic conditions.

vub.ac.be Currently, the vast majority of web sites do not support accessibility for visually impaired users. Usually, these users have to rely on screen readers: applications that sequentially read the content of a web page in audio. Unfortunately, screen readers are not able to detect the meaning of the different page objects, and thus the implicit semantic knowledge conveyed in the presentation of the page is lost. One approach described in literature to tackle this problem, is the Dante approach, which allows semantic annotation of web pages to provide screen readers with extra (semantic) knowledge to better facilitate the audio presentation of a web page. Until now, such annotations were done manually, and failed for dynamic pages. In this paper, we combine the Dante approach with a web design method, WSDM, to fully automate the generation of the semantic annotation for visually impaired users. To do so, the semantic knowledge gathered during the design process is exploited, and the annotations are generated as a by-product of the design process, requiring no extra effort from the designer. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.4 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Hypertext/Hypermedia – architecture, user issues; K.4.2

This paper presents applications of HyCon, a framework for context aware hypermedia system. The HyCon architecture encompasses annotations, links, and guided tours associating locations and RFID- or Bluetooth-tagged objects with maps, Web pages, and collections of resources. The user-created annotations, links and guided tours, are represented as XLink structures, and HyCon introduces the use of XLink for the representation of recorded geographical paths with annotations and links. The HyCon framework extends upon earlier location based hypermedia systems by supporting authoring in the field and by providing access to browsing and searching information through a novel geo-based search (GBS) interface for the Web. Interface-wise, the HyCon prototype utilizes SVG on an interface level, for graphics as well as for user interface widgets on tablet PCs and mobile phones.

Abstract. Composition of e-Services in a multichannel environment requires taking into account the constraints imposed by the context: user profiles, geographical locations, available channels, and usable devices. In this paper, we propose an approach for context-aware composition of e-Services based on an abstract description of both e-Services and context. E-Services are described in terms of functionality and quality of service. The context describes the channels that can be used to access e-Services. The paper proposes adaptation rules as the means to allow the composition and dynamically select e-Service channels according to the constraints posed by available architectures and application-level requirements. Composition and adaptation rules are exemplified on a simple case for emergency management. 1

Enormous amount of semantic data is still being encoded in HTML documents. Identifying and annotating the semantic concepts implicit in such documents makes them directly amenable for Semantic Web processing. In this paper we describe a highly automated technique for annotating HTML documents, especially template-based content-rich documents, containing many different semantic concepts per document. Starting with a (small) seed of hand-labeled instances of semantic concepts in a set of HTML documents we bootstrap an annotation process that automatically identifies unlabeled concept instances present in other documents. The bootstrapping technique exploits the observation that semantically related items in content-rich documents exhibit consistency in presentation style and spatial locality to learn a statistical model for accurately identifying different semantic concepts in HTML documents drawn from a variety of Web sources. We also present experimental results on the effectiveness of the technique. 1

Multimodal interfaces are becoming increasingly ubiquitous with the advent of mobile devices, accessibility considerations, and novel software technologies that combine diverse interaction media. In addition to improving access and delivery capabilities, such interfaces enable flexible and personalized dialogs with websites, much like a conversation between humans. In this paper, we present a software framework for multimodal web interaction management that supports mixed-initiative dialogs between users and websites. A mixed-initiative dialog is one where the user and the website take turns changing the flow of interaction. The framework supports the functional specification and realization of such dialogs using staging transformations -- a theory for representing and reasoning about dialogs based on partial input. It supports multiple interaction interfaces, and offers sessioning, caching, and co-ordination functions through the use of an interaction manager. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the promise of this approach.

Most pages on the Web are designed for the desktop environment and render poorly on the small screens available on handheld devices. Existing techniques to support small screens require that either providers handcraft device-specific versions or automatically adapt Web pages ignoring the interests of the user. We introduce Reusable End-User Customization, a technique for adapting Web pages for the limited screens of hand-held devices. We present PageTailor, an adaptive Web browser that implements this technique, and lets users adapt the layout of Web pages. We show that users can uti-lize PageTailor to adapt sophisticated Web sites, such as Amazon, BBC and MSN, for browsing on a PDA. We also show that user customizations remain effective for up to a year, even as the content of pages is updated, and that customizations can be reused across similar pages, limiting the customization effort required to browse an entire site.

In addition to the actual content Web pages consist of navigational elements, templates, and advertisements. This boilerplate text typically is not related to the main content, may deteriorate search precision and thus needs to be detected properly. In this paper, we analyze a small set of shallow text features for classifying the individual text elements in a Web page. We compare the approach to complex, stateof-the-art techniques and show that competitive accuracy can be achieved, at almost no cost. Moreover, we derive a simple and plausible stochastic model for describing the boilerplate creation process. With the help of our model, we also quantify the impact of boilerplate removal to retrieval performance and show significant improvements over the baseline. Finally, we extend the principled approach by straight-forward heuristics, achieving a remarkable accuracy.

The Web has become available even on mobile phones, but the current methods to view large pages on small screens have not been highly usable. Current mobile phone browsers reformat Web pages to a single column that fits the screen width. Because not all content is comprehensible in this format, browsers provide a second mode for viewing pages in the same layout as on a PC. We have developed a modeless Web page visualization method called Minimap that shows pages in a modified Original layout. We conducted a long-term usability study with 20 participants to compare the state-of-the-art mobile phone browser with this new method. 18 participants preferred the new method, and it also scored better in more detailed usability ratings.

Web pages with complex layout do not display well on small screens, and require extensive amounts of scrolling, both horizontally and vertically. This quickly leads to disorientation within the page. In order to make optimum use of the small displays on mobile devices for Web browsing and searching, it is necessary to enforce both overview and detail concerns of page viewing. However, this typically requires two different visual renderings. SmartView provides an overview in the form of a zoomed out image of the page, with outlines segmenting it into detail regions; the user can select any of these regions in order to view it separately from the rest of the page. The content in the selected region is reformatted to fit the display, reducing any scrolling to a single direction. SearchMobil extends this approach with the aim of providing support for searching: pages retrieved by a search engine are displayed in an overview that is annotated to show the locations of search terms. We carried out a user study to compare SearchMobil’s page representation to the one currently used in Pocket Internet Explorer, with a special emphasis on exploring the impact of page structure and query term selection on its effectiveness.