Real-Time Adaptation of Context-Aware Intelligent User Interfaces, for Enhanced Situational Awareness

In this work, a novel computational approach for the dynamic adaptation of User Interfaces (UIs) is proposed, which aims at enhancing the Situational Awareness (SA) of users by leveraging the current context and providing the most useful information, in an optimal and efficient manner. By combining Ontology modeling and reasoning with Combinatorial Optimization, the system decides
what
information to present,
when
to present it,
where
to visualize it in the display - and
how
, taking into consideration contextual factors as well as placement constraints. The main objective of the proposed approach is to optimize the SA associated with the displayed UI
at run-time
, while avoiding information overload and induced stress. In the context of this work, we have deployed our computational approach to the use case of an Augmented Reality (AR) system for Law Enforcement Agents (LEAs). To explore the benefits and limitations of the developed system, two evaluations have been conducted. The first one was an expert-based evaluation with LEAs and User Experience (UX) experts, assessing the appropriateness of the system’s decisions. The second one was a user-based evaluation involving LEAs from different agencies, estimating the SA, the mental workload and the overall UX associated with the system, through an AR simulation. The results indicate that the system enhances SA, and while not imposing workload, it provides an overall positive UX.