planning a schedule is hard work
figuring out what to do when and how
requires us to reconcile multiple
and competing space and time constraints
we present space time planner a unified
space-time approach
to support flexible personal scheduling
it runs on a mobile application and lets
users easily specify
space-time constraints and iterate on
viable schedules
via automation support
let's see how it works in action on a
concrete scenario
for my upcoming trip to europe i have
one day to spend in amsterdam
before visiting my friend rudy in the
countryside i got a list of
recommendations from rudy to look over
i'll leave the hotel around 9am and so i
add my hotel location at that time to
the schedule
next i want to visit the central library
first thing
as i've been told their top floor has
amazing morning views
as i'm looking at the hours of operation
in context
i will plan to be there as soon as they
open which is at 10 am
i see that it will take 17 minutes to
walk there
and i don't need to spend a whole hour
in the library so i'm going to adjust
the duration to 45 minutes instead
it looks like i have some extra time in
the morning and in fact
let me leave the hotel around 10 a.m
instead it would be nice to sleep in
as i shift the hotel block i can see
that the system automatically resolves
the conflict by pushing the visit to the
library forward in time
now for lunch i have a list of a few
dutch pancake houses from rudy
i'll add all the locations to the
palette and create
a one of group here as i only need to go
to one of these places
let's have lunch around 12. by default
the presented location option
is the closest to the library but let's
see what the other options are
okay let's keep this for now
now some afternoon activities i can't
possibly do everything
but i'll use an as many of option group
here to lay down my options and see what
i can fit during that time
here's a first option proposed by the
system that actually impacts where i
want to eat
let me adjust some of the times here
i think i'd only like to spend maybe 30
minutes at Dam Square
oh the botanical garden i definitely
want to check that out
let me add it to the group of activities
and see how it goes
nice i guess i have a plan
we conducted a user study with 12
participants who were asked to replicate
a planning scenario and then create a
schedule for a friend in a city of their
choice
here we see the results of the
open-ended task
our results suggest that our approach is
easy to learn and to
use and fills an important gap check out
our paper for more details on how