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m:Ciudad: enabling end‐user mobile service creation

Marcin Davies (FTW Telecommunications Research Center Vienna, Vienna, Austria)
François Carrez (Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR), University of Surrey, Guildford, UK)
Juhani Heinilä (Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), Tampere, Finland)
Anna Fensel (FTW Telecommunications Research Center Vienna, Vienna, Austria)
Maribel Narganes (Telecom Business Unit, Tecnalia, Zamudio, Spain)
José Carlos dos Santos Danado (Department of Computer Science and Information, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway)

International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications

ISSN: 1742-7371

Article publication date: 22 November 2011

622

Abstract

Purpose

Mobile computing enables end‐users to create small services on their mobiles and share valuable and context‐aware information with others. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a platform for end‐user generated mobile services – so‐called microservices.

Design/methodology/approach

As a key component the authors present a microservice description language for user‐driven mobile service creation and platform‐independent service execution and rendering. The paper also gives insight into the authors' visual authoring tool. The chosen design approach is evaluated in two phases: an intermediate evaluation with a small hands‐on trial and an online survey; and a final laboratory test with 24 test users in total.

Findings

The paper provides empirical insights about the methods and motivations of end‐users creating small mobile services. The main purposes of service creation would be mostly to exchange information, stay in contact, and just for fun (on the basis of non‐commercial use). The evaluations also indicate the visual drag and drop approach of putting service blocks together as being the most favored in terms of user satisfaction.

Originality/value

The concepts and findings introduced in this paper will help in designing mobile service authoring environments, which is appealing to software communities/vendors and mobile network operators. The presented platform is, to the authors' knowledge, the first designed and implemented infrastructure enabling end‐user mobile service creation.

Keywords

Citation

Davies, M., Carrez, F., Heinilä, J., Fensel, A., Narganes, M. and Carlos dos Santos Danado, J. (2011), "m:Ciudad: enabling end‐user mobile service creation", International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 384-414. https://doi.org/10.1108/17427371111189683

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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