Bringing Dynamic Queries to Mobile Devices: a Visual Preference-based Search Tool for Tourist Decision Support

This paper discusses the design and development of a preference-based search tool (PBST) for tourists, operating on PDA devices. PBSTs are decision support systems that help users in finding the outcomes (e.g., multi-attribute products or services) that best satisfy their needs and preferences. Our tool is specifically aimed at filtering the amount of information about points of interest (POIs) in a geographic area, thus supporting users in the search of the most suitable solution to their needs (e.g., a hotel, a restaurant, a combination of POIs satisfying a set of constraints specified by the user). We focus on the design of an effective interface for the tool, by exploring the combination of dynamic queries to filter POIs on a map with a visualization of the degree of satisfaction of constraints set by the user. We also report the results