Eamonn O'Neill – författare

Mobile Context Awareness presents work from industrial and academic researchers, focusing on novel methods of context acquisition in the mobile environment – particularly through the use of physical and virtual sensors – along with research into new applications utilising this context.

Beep Beep! Let's drive! Turn the wheel to drive the car in this colourful and interactive driving book, perfect for little drivers.With a mini steering wheel, a moving roundabout, and sliding car counters, this chunky board book is just right for little hands. Bright, bold illustrations from Eamonn O’Neill and a simple read-aloud rhyming story put toddlers in the driver’s seat as they turn and steer through the busy streets.Look out for Drive My Fire Engine!

New naw nee naw! It's an emergency!Turn the wheel to drive the fire engine in this colourful and interactive driving book, perfect for little firefighters.With a mini steering wheel, sliding fire engine counter and tabs to push and pull, this chunky board book is just right for little hands. Bright, bold illustrations from Eamonn O’Neill and a simple read-aloud rhyming story put toddlers in the driver’s seat as they turn and steer through the busy streets to rescue a stranded kitten.Look out for Drive My Car!

The topic of the research reported here is direct user participation in the task-based development of interactive software systems. Building usable software demands understanding and supporting users and their tasks. Users are a primary source of usability requirements and knowledge, since users can be expected to have intimate and extensive knowledge of themselves, their tasks and their working environment. Task analysis approaches to software development encourage a focus on supporting users and their tasks while participatory design approaches encourage users' direct, active contributions to software development work. However, participatory design approaches often concentrate their efforts on design activities rather than on wider system development activities, while task analysis approaches generally lack active user participation beyond initial data gathering. This research attempts an integration of the strengths of task analysis and user participation within an overall software development process. This work also presents detailed empirical and theoretical analyses of what it is for users and developers to cooperate, of the nature of user-developer interaction in participatory settings. Furthermore, it makes operational and assesses the effectiveness of user participation in development and the impact of user-developer cooperation on the resulting software product. The research addressed these issues through the development and application of an approach to task based participatory development in two real world development projects. In this integrated approach, the respective strengths of task analysis and participatory design methods complemented each other's weaker aspects.

Mobile context-awareness is a popular research trend in the field of ubiquitous computing. Advances in mobile device sensory hardware and the rise of ‘virtual’ sensors such as web application programming interfaces (APIs) mean that the mobile user is exposed to a vast range of data that can be used for new advanced applications. Mobile Context Awareness presents work from industrial and academic researchers, focusing on novel methods of context acquisition in the mobile environment – particularly through the use of physical and virtual sensors – along with research into new applications utilising this context. In addition, the book provides insights into the technical and usability challenges involved in mobile context-awareness, as well as observations on current and future trends in the field.

The topic of the research reported here is direct user participation in the task-based development of interactive software systems. Building usable software demands understanding and supporting users and their tasks. Users are a primary source of usability requirements and knowledge, since users can be expected to have intimate and extensive knowledge of themselves, their tasks and their working environment. Task analysis approaches to software development encourage a focus on supporting users and their tasks while participatory design approaches encourage users' direct, active contributions to software development work. However, participatory design approaches often concentrate their efforts on design activities rather than on wider system development activities, while task analysis approaches generally lack active user participation beyond initial data gathering. This research attempts an integration of the strengths of task analysis and user participation within an overall software development process. This work also presents detailed empirical and theoretical analyses of what it is for users and developers to cooperate, of the nature of user-developer interaction in participatory settings. Furthermore, it makes operational and assesses the effectiveness of user participation in development and the impact of user-developer cooperation on the resulting software product. The research addressed these issues through the development and application of an approach to task based participatory development in two real world development projects. In this integrated approach, the respective strengths of task analysis and participatory design methods complemented each other's weaker aspects.