1. CS4526 BSc Single Honours Project Hussein Patwa April 2008

2. What is this Project? An extension of existing ATLAS.TXT work “apply Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology to automatically produce textual summaries of map data highlighting ‘important’ content extracted from the underlying spatial data” An extensible platform for future work A two-phased approach– software & study

3. What is this problem? Blind people cannot access graphical representations of information But authors insist on producing this ever more frequently Thus, a widening information access gap

4. What do we want to access? Maps Atlas, tourist guides Statistical Maps Census (2001) Statistical maps giving useful information Office of National Statistics Patterns, Trends

5. How is this information collected? Clustering: Grouping similar data elements together Trending: Identifying regular patterns between clusters Visualisation: Interpreting the trends

6. Should be simple, surely? An algorithm to construct clusters An algorithm to identify trends A mechanism to display the resulting information as text

7. It’s Not Remember the community we’re dealing with No concepts at all What are we trying to do? How could it be useful? So unable to provide user requirements A rather significant hurdle, yes?

8. So now there’s a new problem How to obtain requirements from those who don’t understand them? How to adapt/refine for a viable product? So now we have a research project >>> ENTER PHASE 2 STAGE LEFT >>>

9. New territory, and it’s exciting No such previous concept for requirements gathering No previous research into similar technologies And most importantly, a completely clean slate for a completely new community

10. Why me? Understanding and insight foster results Direct personal motivation from conception to conclusion Who better than one who: has the problem knows the problem knows the people has the mindset?

11. How do you do that? Talk to potential users Work with them, not for them Sell benefits and uses Together, construct tailored requirements to fit this unique community

12. Where when, & what why? Conduct requirements gathering exercises Map to parameters for trending software Declare tailored set of recommendations

13. This is worthwhile, how? Opens the door to future research work in otherwise unexplored areas Provides a platform for ATLAS.TXT for more useful end results Sets a new, viable standard for future technical developments in this field

14. My experiences & lessons learned Working on an ongoing, established project with veteran professionals Lessons: Personal discipline Working to expectations Enhancing understanding of technologies Food for thought on a project within which I have a worthwhile stake

15. Finalement Thank you for your attention and assistance. Any Questions?