Browsing by Author "Shidende, Deogratias"

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Accessibility Features for Augmented Reality Indoor Navigation Systems
(Springer Link, 2024-06-29) Samson, Frank; Dida, Mussa; Leo, Judith; Shidende, Deogratias; Naman, Godfrey
Accessibility plays a pivotal role in developing technological tools that strive to promote inclusivity for users of all abilities. Regrettably, many technological advancements have traditionally disregarded accessibility, assuming homogeneous user abilities or treating it as an afterthought. This paper endeavors to provide a review of accessibility considerations on augmented reality indoor navigation systems, to enhance navigational experiences in indoor learning environments. To achieve this, interviews were conducted with visually impaired individuals, to investigate their existing methods of navigation, identify challenges they face, and uncover potential accessibility features that could enhance indoor navigation systems. Additionally, a literature review was undertaken to explore various accessibility features in the context of indoor navigation systems, including localization technologies and pathfinding algorithms employed in indoor navigation applications. Finally, the paper concludes by offering insights into accessibility features specifically tailored for individuals with visual impairments, to facilitate efficient indoor navigation.
Accessible Augmented Reality Chemistry Lab for Students in Developing Countries
(IEEE, 2024-05-20) Samson, Frank; Shidende, Deogratias; Moebs, Sabine
This study explores the challenges of teaching science, especially chemistry, in developing countries, with a focus on Tanzania. It highlights the issues of insufficient teaching resources, limited educator capacity, and inadequate infrastructure, which undermine educational quality and student performance. Despite government initiatives such as free education, the lack of resources for practical sessions and accessible materials for science persists, significantly affecting inclusive learning environments. To address these challenges, the study introduces the development of an Augmented Reality (AR) Lab tool designed to enhance learning experiences. This mobile app-based AR tool allows students to visualize and interact with chemical concepts without a physical lab, aiming to improve accessibility, especially for visually impaired learners. The study employed a case study methodology at St. Jude Secondary School, using mixed data collection methods, including focus groups to gather user stories focused on safety, familiarity with lab apparatus, and accessibility features of people with visual impairment. These stories guided the agile scrum development of the AR tool. Results demonstrate that the AR tool significantly enhances learning outcomes by increasing accessibility, motivation, performance, immersion, and engagement, offering a promising solution to the educational challenges faced in developing countries.
Design and implementation of tour guide portal for enhancing tourism in Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2020-03) Shidende, Deogratias
Tour guides contribute significantly to the enjoyment and satisfaction of tourist thereby promoting tourism worldwide. Unfortunately, in many developing countries, it has been problematic to locate a suitable tour guide for particular tourism or wildlife activities. Although in Tanzania, there are various efforts to ensuring tour guides are professional; however, there is no baseline information about tour guides that can help plan and promote tourism through a tour guide. Moreover, the registration process for tour guides are unnecessarily cyclical, costly and time-consuming. This study, therefore, seeks to design and implement a Tour Guide Portal that will facilitate access to tour guide information for the promotion of the tourism sector in Tanzania. The study employed qualitative and quantitative methods and has found that User Generated Contents through learning library, discussion forums and reviewing and rating tour guides, can enhance the tour guide profession. In this work, we used agile methodology through extreme programming to develop a tour guide portal. Further, we used real participants to execute task scenarios in combination with think-aloud protocol and system usability scale to evaluate the usability of tour guide portal. This evaluation has found that the tour guide portal is usable and suitable for tour guide management in Tanzania. Additionally, this study employed a lean canvas to create a business model that will determine the operationalisation of tour guide portal in Tanzania. The findings of this study imply that tour guide portal is a massive step towards promoting the tour guide profession in Tanzania. It will avail the tour guide statistics to the government, assist tourism stakeholders locating the right tour guide for a particular activity and consequently enhance tourism in Tanzania.
Towards enhancing Tour Guide professionalism in Tanzania through a Tour Guide Portal
(African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, 2019) Shidende, Deogratias; Kaijage, Shubi; Möbs, Sabine
Tourism is an important sector for the development of the economy of the country. It contributes directly and indirectly to Gross Domestic Product, employment generation and source of foreign currency. Tour guiding is one of the special ingredients for thegrowth of tourism in any nation. The professionalism of tour guides directly affects the tourist satisfaction and hence the growth of the sector. Several efforts have been done so far to enhance the professionalism of tour guides in Tanzania, however, there is no baseline information about this group which can be used as a basis for an enhancement of professionalism. Moreover, there are pieces of evidence of unprofessionalism conducts among tour guides. By using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this study elaborates the current practices of tour guides in Tanzania and how the development of tour guide portal will enhance the professionalism of tour guides. The findings have shown that there are many tour guides with different knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experiences. However, it is difficult to identify which guide is most suitable for a particular tourist destination or activity. Furthermore, most guides can communicate using at least one foreign language, however, the language proficiency levels need to be established. Although licensing and certification have been used in different places to enhance the professionalism of tour guides, user-generated contents from customers can complement these methodologies.This study concluded that a tourguide portal is an important tool for enhancing professionalism among tour guides through creating baseline information of tour guides in Tanzania, recognizing, registering, facilitating the license application as well as enabling feedback systems throughuser-generated contents from both, service providers and consumers of tourism.