A whole lot of fuss about LifeNavigator -A human-centered approach to a concept for a mobile application helping individuals to better fit their values and preferences into their everyday life

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of a design solution that could help individuals to better fit their values and preferences into their everyday life. As a starting point the concept of LifeNavigator, a mobile application that would use combination of selected data from chosen sources to make context-aware suggestions, is used. The concept is furthermore set to examine people's reactions on replacing searches with suggestions in order to leave room for more spontaneity. Through looking into related research, and using people-centered methods: probes, scenario- based interviews and a workshop, the concept is reflected upon. The goal has been to search for important qualities that should be kept in mind when designing an application to this fragile and personal context. The secondary issue concerning changes in the practice of searches travels as an underlying theme, mostly as support for the primary research question. As a result, eight qualities were found: control, independency, richness of content and functions, trust, community, providing motivation, context awareness and on-demand. Based on the research on query-free information retrieval and information agents, similar preceding ideas were found, but existing solutions that are comparable to the suggestions made by LifeNavigator, were not discovered.