TY - JOUR
T1 - m:Ciudad
T2 - Enabling end-user mobile service creation
AU - Davies, Marcin
AU - Carrez, François
AU - Heinilä, Juhani
AU - Fensel, Anna
AU - Narganes, Maribel
AU - Danado, José Carlos dos Santos
PY - 2011/11
Y1 - 2011/11
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - End-user development
KW - Microservices
KW - Mobile communication systems
KW - Mobile services
KW - Mobile technology
KW - Semantic web services
KW - User-centric service creation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84893327237&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/17427371111189683
DO - 10.1108/17427371111189683
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84893327237
SN - 1742-7371
VL - 7
SP - 384
EP - 414
JO - International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications
JF - International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications
IS - 4
ER -