Culturally Informed Notions of Mobile Context Awareness: Lessons Learned from User-centred Exploration of Concepts of Context and Context Awareness

Mobile context awareness is an elusive concept within extant literature on human-computer interaction. Despite extensive research into context awareness, past studies have accentuated the architectural aspects of context-aware applications without paying sufficient attention to user-centric issues associated with such applications. To this end, this study endeavours to shed light on how context-aware applications are construed by users. Drawing inspiration from the ‘future workshop’ methodological approach, two focus groups were conducted in Denmark and China to elicit insights into the benefits and shortcomings of contemporary context-aware applications across different cultural settings. Empirical findings suggest that users’ interactions with context-aware applications are governed, to a large extent, by their: (1) own personal value system; (2) sensitivity towards such applications, and; (3) current activity in which they are engaged. This study thus takes a small but concrete step towards further discussions on the importance of embracing a user-centred view of mobile context awareness.