Towards a Better Understanding of Context and Context-Awareness

Some of the research challenges in understanding context and in developing context-aware applications are discussed, which are increasingly important in the fields of handheld and ubiquitous computing, where the user?s context is changing rapidly.

Abstract

Abstract. The use of context is important in interactive applications. It is particularly important for applications where the user’s context is changing rapidly, such as in both handheld and ubiquitous computing. In order to better understand how we can use context and facilitate the building of context-aware applications, we need to more fully understand what constitutes a contextaware application and what context is. Towards this goal, we have surveyed existing work in context-aware computing. In this paper, we provide an overview of the results of this survey and, in particular, definitions and categories of context and context-aware. We conclude with recommendations for how this better understanding of context inform a framework for the development of context-aware applications. 1