Keynote Speakers

Title

Enabling Networked Knowledge

Abstract

Despite the enormous amounts of information the Web has made accessible, we still lack means to interconnect and link this information in a meaningful way to lift it from the level of information to the level of knowledge. Additionally, new sources of information about the physical world become available through the emerging sensor technologies. This information needs to be integrated with the existing information on the Web and in information systems which requires (light-weight) semantics as a core building block. This talk will discuss the potential of a global knowledge space and which research and technologies are required to enable the vision of networked knowledge.

Biography

Manfred Hauswirth is Vice-Director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), Galway, Ireland and professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG). He holds an M.S. (1994) and a Ph.D. (1999) in computer science from the Technical University of Vienna. His main research interests are on semantic sensor networks, sensor networks middleware, large-scale semantics-enabled distributed information systems and applications, peer-to-peer systems, Internet of things, self-organization and self-management, Semantic Web services, and distributed systems security. He has published over 100 papers in these domains, he has co-authored a book on distributed software architectures and several book chapters on P2P data management and semantics. Manfred has served in over 150 program committees of international scientific conferences and was program co-chair of the Seventh IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing in 2007 and general chair of the Fifth European Semantic Web Conference in 2008. He is a member of IEEE and ACM and is on the board of WISEN, the Irish Wireless Sensors Enterprise Led Network, and the scientific board of the Corporate Semantic Web research center at FU Berlin.

Title

User experience of mobile and ubiquitous services: How to build in the user value?

Abstract

Mobile services are increasingly offered as enablers to people’s everyday lives. Still, users often face severe problems in finding, accessing and using the services. Advanced mobile services may simply be too complex to use, or the potential users may not even see the value of the mobile solution offered to them. Users can benefit from technical solutions on various levels: They need to complete a useful set of tasks effectively, but they also need to have positive emotional experiences while using the system. Even though user interface plays a significant role in providing high-quality user experience (UX), good UX design is rooted in the early phases of system design – starting from the very basic choices of functionality and end-to-end system characteristics. With mobile and ubiquitous services, the potential for good UX is immense: Users can have immersive social connectedness, participate in multimodal content creation, and complete their tasks smoothly while moving around and accessing the contextually adaptive services. This talk will address the technological enablers of the modern mobile services from the perspective of human-centered design and propose opportunities for future UX design through user-driven innovation, agile user involvement, and value-based design. The talk will also set the scene for future UX design challenges in ubicomp, social media, cloud, and mixed reality services.

Biography

Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila is a full professor of usability in Tampere University of Technology, department of Software Systems, where she’s leading the unit of Human-Centered Technology. Kaisa has over 15 years experience in human-centered design, both in university and industry, including 10 years with Nokia Inc. Kaisa's research interests cover user experience and user-centered design methods in product development, with emphasis on design and evaluation of mobile communication products and services. Kaisa has Master of Science degrees from Helsinki University of Technology (software engineering) and University of London (Human-Computer Interaction), and a doctoral degree in computer science (multimedia information systems) from Technical University of Darmstadt. Currently Kaisa is also a part-time visiting professor at Nokia Research Center, focusing on user experience of mobile and mixed reality services.