UMADR 2011 - The 2nd International Workshop on User Modeling and Adaptation for Daily Routines (UMADR): Providing Assistance to People with Special and Specific Needs

The 2nd International Workshop on User Modeling and Adaptation for Daily Routines (UMADR): Providing Assistance to People with Special and Specific Needs will be held in Girona - Spain, 11 or 15 July 2010 (to be confirmed), within the 19th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2011).

Motivation

During our life, we are involved in a huge variety of activities that we constantly repeat associated to diverse contexts. These activities can be related to domestic routines, working tasks, everyday urban-life, and so on. Each day there are a lot of decisions to be taken, both in regular situations (e.g., "what should I have for dinner tonight?", "which clothes will I wear today?") and in unexpected ones (e.g., "the underground is not working, how will I go home now?". Choosing the right options reverts on improving our self-esteem, quality of life, and social integration. However, while some people can take this type of decisions with an insignificant effort, this task may not be easy at all for others as not everybody has the same capabilities. For example, whilst traveling in public transport can be a trivial task for some users, it can be quite hard for others (i.e., elder people, or those with cognitive limitations or motor disabilities). The same happens with most daily routines such as the ones mentioned above.

Computer systems can help to improve people’s abilities (e.g. motor, sensory, memory, reasoning, communication, social, or emotional skills among others) both when using them as assistances in daily life and when they are used as trainers. UMADR focuses on those that affect how people with special and specific needs manage on their everyday life. Some examples of expected and unexpected issues that people daily face are:

Indoor and outdoor navigation.
Information searching, reading and understanding.
Daily schedule and task prioritization.
Health and personal care.
Cleaning habits.
Eating habits.
Mathematics in daily life.
Tool and device manipulation.
Safety and security issues.
Working tasks.
Sustainable habits.
Living in society.
Since their origins, adaptive systems have focused on helping users with specific preferences and needs to learn, work or take decisions, among others. The aim of this workshop is to bring light about how adaptive methods and techniques can be used to help users (either with some kind of disability or with specific needs) to accomplish daily tasks and to take decisions both in foreseen and unforeseen situations. The main aim is to be able to give them advice through different devices (PDAs, mobile phones, laptops …) according to the context in which they are at each time, also considering their capabilities, preferences and special/specific needs at that context. Modeling user’s capabilities, limitations and needs (in the context described in this motivation) is another essential task as well.

Goals

The current workshop, which follows the first and successful workshop on "User Modeling and Adaptation for Daily Routines: Providing Assistance to People with Special and Specific Needs", targets work on analysis, design, implementation and evaluation of adaptive systems to assist users with special/specific needs to take decisions and fulfill daily routine activities, with special emphasis on major trends in: modeling user features, limitations and special/specific needs; representing daily activities, including potential difficulties and decisions to be taken (both in regular and unexpected situations); designing and building adaptive assistants for daily routines; and evaluating the use of this type of assistants. This year, the workshop will focus on the following key questions to be discussed:

Which are the difficulties and the potential solutions for helping the users to carry out routine tasks?
How can routine tasks and (un)expected situations be modeled?
Which aspects of the user (capabilities, preferences, personality, cognitive limitations, motor disabilities, affective states, context, etc.) should be taken into account to assist to users in their daily routines at different contexts, such as home, work, transport, learning, leisure, etc.?
What adaptation methods and techniques are more appropriate for adaptive assistance in daily activities?
How should adaptive systems’ potential trade-offs (e.g. proactivity, predictability, privacy) be managed in the context of adaptive assistants for daily routines?
How can recommendations of context-based adaptive assistants for daily routines be evaluated?
We hope that workshop results can benefit users with special needs (such as those with psychological or cognitive limitations), users with specific needs (such as the elderly), or users facing situation for the first time (such as children or tourists).