Contextion: A Framework for Developing Context-aware Mobile Applications

Abstract

Context-aware mobile interfaces that are dynamic and adapt to each user pose a challenge to developers because the interface must continually adapt to accommodate changes in the user's activity and environment. Current methods of development do not allow for efficient creation of contextual applications. In addition, although data from sensors on a mobile device provides a rough estimation of a user's environment, the data needs to be combined in an intelligent way in order to determine a user's intention. In this paper we present the design of a framework called Contextion for easily creating context-aware mobile applications. The framework is built as a layered architecture in order for portions of application components to be adapted based on current contextual information. Contextion also allows for rapid addition of new sensor technologies on a mobile device to the Contextion framework. Using a specification language, end-users can define in what situations various pieces of contextual data should be used and how the data affects the mobile application. In addition, the design of Contextion allows for the definition of operations based on contexts that may not be known at the time of development.