Multimodal interaction: technology used for pedestrians and tourism

The multimodal interaction can be very useful in the modern conditions, especially while in traffic. It can help pedestrians, as well as drivers to be focused on the traffic, while doing in the same time usual things like checking the e-mail.

By combining traditional mouse/keyboard input with non-traditional user input modes, such as pen, speech and gestures one can achieve visible improvements in device interactivity, for example by saying a word, instead of typing it. In such a way, while on the road you don’t have to be focused on working with your mobile device, but instead on the traffic situation. By using the new XHTML+Voice interactivity model, one can find out about the traffic situation, get information on sights, use and manipulate the map information.

A relevant example of such a system would be the GUIDE system, created by Keith Cheverst, Nigel Davies, Keith Mitchell and Adrian Friday from Lancaster University. It has been successfully deployed in several major tourist destinations and proved to be of great help for the tourists, being available for the visitors who wish to explore the city by themselves. In the future, it is possible that every big tourist destination would have a similar system, that can help the tourists and by using the complex ideas of the multimodal interaction, bring a new life to the spot.

Also, we can speak about devices that can have not only multimodal input, but also multimodal output. For example, they can help the blind by reading the texts for them. Also it could be of great use to the “situational impaired” that simply in that situation cannot work with the device at its full potential.

With the growing need of complex and simultaneous operations on web, the need of multimodal interaction is increasing day by day, because once with the continuous sophistication of the daily tasks, multimodal interaction, in comparison with unimodal interaction proves to be more efficient and easy in use.