Evaluation of a Web-based and Mobile Ski Touring Application for GPS-enabled Smartphones

In the project “TourGuide”, an integrated web and mobile information system for hiking tours and ski tours was developed and evaluated with a group of test users. The web portal provides detailed information about tours and offers functionality to search, explore and discover tours that suit a user’s individual needs. While the web portal enables users to plan a trip from home, the mobile client application offers a range of dedicated location based services and navigation instructions that support users while on the move. The mobile client application was developed for Java based smartphones and includes a map-viewer component that displays a user’s current location, the selected tour, as well as multimedia information about objects of interest along the route. Besides gaining valuable information about how the usability of the system may be improved, the results of the evaluation show that integrated solutions can lead to a high level of user satisfaction.