Towards a Taxonomy of Display Styles for Ubiquitious Multimedia

Abstract

In this chapter, a domain independent taxonomy of sign functions rooted in an analysis of physical signs found in public space is presented. This knowledge is necessary for the construction of future multimedia systems that are capable of automatically generating complex yet legible graphical responses from an underlying abstract information space such as a semantic network. The authors take the presence of a sign in the real world as indication for a demand for the information encoded in that sign, and identify the fundamental types of information that are needed to fulfill various tasks. For the information types listed in the taxonomy, strategies for rendering the information to the user in digital mobile multimedia systems are discussed.