Visualizing Data Gathered by Mobile Phones - Geographic Visualization: Concepts, Tools and Applications - page 316

can be revealed and explored. For example, in the Day of the Figurines case study, location
data is presented as a timeline displaying the cell IDs where a participant is located and how
long they have spent in that cell. From this the analyst can view cells that a participant has most
often visited as well as repetition of cell IDs at particular times of the day. Supplementing this
timeline view with additional context data can allow a best guess of where that participant
could be located in the physical world.
In these statistical visualizations we find another way to explore location-based data that
focuses more on the activities of the participants. The advantage here is that often we wish to
simply review the participants' activities over time. In this way the statistical visualizations
used in the Day of the Figurines could, for example, provide a mechanism through which
we could explore play patterns in mobile pervasive games.
16.6 Conclusion
Mobile phones are truly ubiquitous and pervasive in everyday life and can allow the researcher
the potential for a large number of participants to take part in data gathering experiments.
Coupled with effective visualizations of the data collected, we can allow researchers to collect
more data and to effectively explore this data.
In this chapter we have presented two example case studies where we have collected data
using mobile phones to specifically explore patterns of game play in mobile pervasive games.
This data has been location-tagged and context information used to aid exploration. In both
of the case studies we have used cell IDs as a way of location tagging data. However, as newer
mobile phones become cheaper and more commonplace, researchers could have access to a
pool of participants that have powerful data collection devices that can capture GPS location
data as well as context information.
Furthermore, by utilizing the capabilities of different mobile phones, it could be possible
to collect wider ranges of data as well as provide a way in which different location data could
be merged. For example, by providing software that logs cell IDs and GPS coordinated
to GPS-enabled mobile phone participants, the researcher can utilize this information to
pin cell ID data collected by participants that do not have GPS-enabled mobile phones to
certain areas on a map. Other examples could be to utilize the strengths of different mobile
phones; for example, for PDA-style mobile phones the researcher could use questionnaire-
style data collection, whereas mobile phones with video cameras could be used to video
areas of interest.
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