Time, location and interest

摘要

The importance of context in meeting user information needs has gained increasing interest. When developing interactive information retrieval systems, we do need to consider how contextual information might be used to improve information retrieval. In this paper, we present a user-centred experiment that focuses on three potential context attributes. These are time, location, and user's interest. The experiment involved tasks using a scenario that would be suitable for mobile situations - one very promising area for the application of context information that can help to deliver personalised services. The scenario involves situations with local events such as jazz concerts and includes the use of a simplified map to help visualise locations. The effect of the three attributes and the interactions between them are analysed and discussed. The effects in most cases were considerable and data analysis showed statistically significant effects. The study shows that time, location, and interest matter tousers in mobile situations. There appears to be a priority emerging in the relative importance of these attributes for the mobile user. Also, the results show high order interaction effects between the attributes.