The impact of remote sensing on the everyday lives of mobile users in urban areas

Increasing urbanism creates serious ambient problems that downgrade the quality of life of citizens. Environmental awareness may help people to take more informed decisions in their everyday lives, ensuring their health and safety. The Web of Things is becoming a reality, as embedded sensors are being deployed in urban areas for environmental monitoring. These sensors are accessible and discoverable through the Web, and their services can be harnessed by mobile users on the go. In this paper, we perform a small case study, by using mini focus groups, to identify the impact of remote sensing on the everyday lives of users. By means of UrbanRadar, an application that discovers and interacts with environmental services offered by Web-enabled urban sensors, we investigate and discuss the acceptance, influence, usefulness and potential of these services to mobile users. Finally, based on the feedback from participants, we identify eleven design patterns, important for future mobile applications involving remote sensing.