A Framework for Curating Personalised Leisure Walking Experiences

Williams, J. (2025). A Framework for Curating Personalised Leisure Walking Experiences. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

@phdthesis{Williams2025Thesis,
  title        = {A Framework for Curating Personalised Leisure Walking Experiences},
  year         = {2025},
  school       = {University of Nottingham},
  month        = {July},
  keywords     = {Leisure Walking; Route Recommendation; Personalisation; Mobile Geospatial Computing; Geospatial Computer Science},
  author       = {Williams, James},
  url          = {https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/80735/},
  abstract     = {How can a richer understanding of the leisure walking experience be used to support the curation of personalised route recommendations? Leisure walking is a personal and subjective experience that encompasses a range of multi-faceted expectations and narratives, this can include visiting points of interests, connecting with the environment, or engaging with the social fabric of places. The broad and disparate scope of these reasons and interests makes the process of recommending new and personalised leisure walking experiences difficult. Existing research exploring the recommendation of leisure walking experiences is often based on broad assumptions about walkers with little representation of subjective or contextual detail. Prior work in leisure walking fails to address the wide array of reasons for leisure walking and in turn representing these in personalised walking experiences. Based on the lack of personalisation of leisure walking experiences, this thesis investigates leisure walking from a user-centred perspective. Three grounded theory studies are conducted to understand leisure walking, capturing details on (1) leisure walking behaviours through a behaviour survey, (2) practitioner knowledge of the subject area through interviews with professionals, and (3) a rich understanding of the leisure walking experience through a think-aloud study. Grounded theory is used in this thesis to address the broad assumptions about walking, developing a theoretical understanding of leisure walking grounded in empirical studies. Using this grounded theory of leisure walking behaviours, professional perspectives, and walkers in-situ experiences, a framework is designed to support the curation of personalised leisure walking experiences. The framework represents the research related to three tasks of leisure walking: planning, doing, and reflecting. Using this understanding a demonstrator tool for curating personalised leisure walking experiences is designed based on forty-nine properties and considerations formed from the grounded theory. A think-aloud and in-depth interview study is conducted to evaluate the role of the tool in supporting the curation of personalised experiences based on the participants local knowledge of an area. The qualitative evaluation found that the system is able perform well in terms of matching local knowledge and supporting the curation of new experiences, often recommending routes that can either be explained by the participant or which match expectations. The thesis closes with a discussion on future opportunities for leisure walking technology, providing design considerations for supporting personalised leisure walking experiences.}
}