A Context-sensitive Nomadic Information System as an Exhibition Guide

The paper describes the goal and practice of the nomadic exhibition guide Hippie. Hippie takes into account the context of use of the nomadic system. An information system is said to be nomadic when the user has access to both his or her personal information space and to the public information space from all places independent from specific devices—for nomadic systems see (Kleinrock 1997). For nomadic information systems not one particular (small, wearable, mobile) appliance is crucial. Nomadic information systems include mobile devices as well as stationary desktop computers or kiosk systems with all having access to information spaces relevant for the user. Users will increasingly be nomads (Makimoto & Manners 1997). Like they always wear a bundle of keys in the pocket to have access to physical spaces future nomads will have an electronic key to get access to information spaces no matter with which devices they currently work with.