Handling data spatially: Spatializating user interfaces

Transactions in GIS, 1997

The way people conceptualize space is an important consideration for the design of geographic information systems, because a better match with peopleÕs thinking is expected to lead to easier-touse information systems. Everyday space, the basis to geographic information systems (GISs), has been characterized in the literature as being either small-scale (from table-top to room-size spaces) or large-scale (inside-of-building spaces to city-size space). While this dichotomy of space is grounded in the view from psychology that peopleÕs perception of space, spatial cognition, and spatial behavior are experience-based, it is in contrast to current GISs, which enable us to interact with large-scale spaces as though they were small-scale or manipulable. We analyze different approaches to characterizing spaces and propose a unified view in which space is based on the physical properties of manipulability, locomotion, and size of space. Within the structure of our framework, we distinguish six types of spaces: manipulable object space (smaller than the human body), non-manipulable object space (greater than the human body, but less than the size of a building), environmental space (from inside building spaces to city-size spaces), geographic space (state, country, and continent-size spaces), panoramic space (spaces perceived via scanning the landscape), and map space. Such a categorization is an important part of Naive Geography, a set of theories of how people intuitively or spontaneously conceptualize geographic space and time, because it has implications for various theoretical and methodological questions concerning the design and use of spatial information tools. Of particular concern is the design of effective spatial information tools that lead to better communication.

Geoforum, 1992

Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction for …, 1995

Metaphors have found their way into the theory and practice of user interface design, but there remain many specific questions about the extent and methodology of their use. This paper discusses some of these questions in the context of user interfaces for Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It is structured as a list of 7±2 questions and answers, where the "+" applies to questions and the "-" to answers, reflecting the fact that there are many questions without or with only tentative answers yet. The questions address the issues of metaphor definition, metaphor vs. magic, generating metaphor candidates, metaphor selection, design methodology, metaphor combination, cross-cultural use, extent of use, and overall justification for metaphors. The question and answer pairs are illustrated by examples from the domain of GIS.

1991

The first paper, entitled "Deficiencies of SQL as a GIS Query Language", argues that SQL and various extended versions of it are not adequate geographic query languages. They lack the integration of graphical display in retrieval and presentation of query results and do not support the set operations necessary for spatial query. In the second paper, "A Formalization of Metaphors and Image-Schemas in User Interfaces", an algebraic approach to formalization of interface metaphors is presented as a step toward the design of metaphor-based interfaces. This approach to mapping source to target domains is demonstrated by analyzing the metaphorical and image-schematic bases the "zoom" function. The third paper, "Matching Representations of Geographic Locations", sets out fundamental differences in the representations of geographic space and spatial relations in minds, written location descriptions, and conventional cartographic data sets, and proposes a geographic data structure which might facilitate establishing correspondence between locations in each representation. Together, these papers range across theoretical and practical concerns in incorporating "spatial sense" in GIS.

Nowadays, spatial data are totally widespread in mobile applications. They are present in games, map applications, web community applications and office automations. However this kind of spatial information potentially needs a large display area and the hardware constraint related to the limited screen dimensions creates many usability challenges. Our investigation in the last few years to find solutions to these challenges has led us to the discovery of general usability principles that a welldesigned interface should adopt. In this paper we describe the mental path we have followed to derive those principles from the experience gained in developing mobile interfaces for different application domains. The principles are formalized in terms of two interaction design patterns, specific for mobile interfaces managing spatial data. They extend existing HCI patterns and are completed, as usual, with concrete examples of their applications.

This paper aims to explore the potential of using available WiFi networks as an input for a space-use analysis model (SUA_m) capable of describing -observing, recording and quantifying -and visualizing spatial usage and users' spatial behaviours in knowledgesharing scenarios (KnSc) and correlating this information to spatial structure. For the purpose of this paper, KnSc are defined as physical locations where people go for collaboration and other activities carrying mobile devices functioning as location probes.

Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2007

This paper reflects upon the topic of spatial data quality and the progress made in this field over the past 20-30 years. While international standards have been established, theoretical models of error developed, new visualization techniques introduced, and metadata now routinely documented for spatial datasets, difficulties nevertheless exist with the way data quality information is being described, communicated and applied in practice by users. These problems are identified and the paper suggests how the spatial information community might move forward to overcome these obstacles.

The use of Geographic Information or GI, has grown rapidly in recent years. Previous research has identified the importance of usability and user centred design in enabling the proliferation and exploitation of GI. However, the design and development of usable GI is not simply a matter of applying the tried and tested usability methods that have been developed for software and web design. Dealing with data and specifically GI brings with it a number of issues that change the way usability and user centred design can be applied. This paper describes the outcomes of a workshop held in March 2010 exploring the core issues relating to GI usability. The workshop brought together an international group of twenty experts in both human factors and GI, from a wide range of academic and industrial backgrounds. These experts considered three key issues, the stakeholders in GI, key challenges applying usability to GI and the usability methods that can be successfully applied to GI. The result of this workshop was to identify some areas for future research, such as the production of meaningful metadata and the implications of blurring of the line between data producers and data consumers. Applied Ergonomics xxx (2012) 1e11 Please cite this article in press as: Brown, M., et al., Usability of Geographic Information: Current challenges and future directions, Applied Ergonomics (2012), http://dx.Please cite this article in press as: Brown, M., et al., Usability of Geographic Information: Current challenges and future directions, Applied Ergonomics (2012), http://dx.

2007

This paper introduces a user model to describe in a systematic way the spatial relations among objects in the space surrounding the user with the respect to the application context. Our study is addressed to provide the right binding between those relations and operators provided by geometric models.

The growing volume and complexity of the World Wide Web creates a need for new forms of interaction with information. Spatial metaphors have been in the focus of interface research for a number of years. Recently, a related concept called spatialization has emerged as one possible strategy for dealing with modern information glut. However, the term remains ill-defined. We present a definition of spatialization that is based on the notion of information spaces that are non-spatial and high-dimensional. Through spatialization, they are projected into a low-dimensional form and made accessible for visual interpretation.