3rd Australasian Heritage Conference: Dunedin 2009: Presenters

Daniel Woo i

Daniel Woo

Human Computer Interaction Laboratory
School of Computer Science and Engineering
The University of New South Wales

For the past decade, Daniel Woo has led human computer interaction teaching and research in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales. User experience and design are at the core of his research and development activities.

He has worked on a variety of research, development and teaching projects with the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Schools of Chemistry, Surveying and Spatial Information Systems (SSIS) and Industrial Design at UNSW and has consulted on usability and design for Kahootz 3.0, SBS First Australians, UNSW Library, New South Global and the Independent Living Centre. In 2003, he was part of a successful ARC Linkage grant, AudioNomad, under the inaugural Synapse Initiative; a collaboration between the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Australia Council for the Arts to bring artists and scientists together to form novel collaborations. In 2009, in conjunction with SSIS, Vision Australia and an Industrial Designer has been awarded an ARC Linkage grant to investigate and design navigational technologies for the blind and visually impaired.

Since 2000 he has established formal testing and teaching infrastructure to support usability evaluation and software design of user interfaces. He continues to manage, create and design software systems from web through to iPhone.

He has been working with mobile devices and media for almost two decades including experience in audio, speech technologies, photography and video.

Paper: Sydney's Birthplace Walk Podcast

Abstract: The Sydney’s Birthplace Walk is a heritage walking tour that is freely available as an enhanced podcast. It is based on an existing walking tour developed by Heritage Engineer, Michael Clarke, and describes the places, people and engineers that established modern Sydney. Set in the historic Rocks area, the two and a half hour tour provides listeners with just over an hour and a quarter of content, consisting of audio commentary, still photographs, navigation instructions, maps and background audio. User centred design strategies were adopted in the analysis phase to understand the context in which the original walking tour was presented. This paper discusses the design, development and production of an enhanced podcast highlighting the importance of the copyright issues surrounding the release. Availability via the iTunes Store podcast section will also be described. The paper further explores the future of personal mobile and location aware devices for advocacy and education in heritage engineering.