Context-aware interactive content adaptation

Automatic adaptation of content for mobile devices is a challenging problem because optimal adaptation often depends on the usage semantics of content, as well as the context of users (e.g., screen size of device being used, network connectivity, location, etc.). Usage-awaRe Interactive Content Adaptation (URICA) is an automatic technique that adapts content for mobile devices based on usage semantics. URICA allows a user who is unsatisfied with the system's current adaptation prediction to take control of the adaptation process and make changes until the content is suitably adapted for her purposes. The adaptation system learns from the user's modifications and adjusts its prediction for future accesses by other users. This paper shows that it is possible to exploit user interaction to learn how to adapt content based on context. We introduce Feedback-driven Context Selection (FCS), an automatic technique that leverages user interaction to identify the context that has the most impact on adaptation requirements. We added context-awareness to URICA so that it makes adaptation predictions for a user based only on the history of the community of users that share the context identified by FCS. The result is an automatic adaptation system that provides fine grain adaptations that reflect both the user's context and the content's usage semantics. This level of fine grain adaptation was previously available only in content that was customized manually. Experiments with two context-aware URICA prototypes show that FCS correctly identifies the contextual characteristics that impact adaptation requirements, and that grouping users into communities based on context improves the performance of the adaptation system by up to 79%.