A Context Frame for Interactive Maps

2023

Landmarks play a crucial role in map reading and in the formation of mental spatial models. Especially when following a route to get to a fixed destination, landmarks are crucial orientation aids. Which objects from the multitude of spatial objects in an environment are suitable as landmarks and, for example, can be automatically displayed in navigation systems has hardly been clarified. The analysis of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) offers the possibility of no longer having to separate methodologically between active and passive salience of landmarks in order to gain insights into the effect of landmarks on orientation ability or memory performance. Since the users (groups) involved are map producers and map users at the same time, an analysis of the user behavior of user-generated maps provides in-depth insights into cognitive processes and enables the direct derivation of basic methodological principles for map design. The landmarks determined on the basis of the VGI and entered as signs in maps can provide indications of the required choice, number, and position of landmarks that users need in order to orientate themselves in space with the help of maps. The results of several empirical studies show which landmark pictograms from OpenStreetMap (OSM) maps are cognitively processed quickly by users and which spatial position they must have in order to be able to increase memory performance, for example, during route learning.

Computer Human Interaction, 2003

As users pan and zoom, display content can disappear into off-screen space, particularly on small-screen de- vices. The clipping of locations, such as relevant places on a map, can make spatial cognition tasks harder. Halo is a visualization technique that supports spatial cognition by showing users the location of off-screen objects. Halo accomplishes this by surrounding off-screen objects with rings

Mobile maps show the current position of a map reader in their center. We will question this convention, which is in our opinion a relict from paper maps. We observe that, in contrast to paper maps, mobile maps have a narrower purpose and mobile devices have a different affordance and handling. This observation encourages thinking of a map design that allows an embodied experience of map reading. The latter is realized here by a shift of the current position of the map reader to the bottom of a mobile map. We expect that a map design closer to the bodily experience of a map reader reduces the cognitive workload of reading. In this paper we investigate the new design paradigm and its consequences. Furthermore, we present experiments of reaction times of map readers, to find evidence for the validity of our hypothesis.

Proceedings of the 12th …, 2010

This paper presents a novel solution to the focus-and-context problem of mobile maps provided for local and global orientation. Our solution is inspired by the design principles of static You-Are-Here maps and realizes principles of human spatial cognition to enable efficient communication of location information. We further propose selective interaction with the presented information to improve the speed and accuracy of interpretation of the geographic information. Tests show strong evidence for the cognitive and interaction efficiency of the resulting maps, as users were faster and more accurate than with conventional mobile maps.

2005

This paper discusses new techniques for enhancing a sequence of (latitude, longitude) points by tagging them with nearby points of interest and associated Web pages. We present a browser that lets a user explore the enhanced tracks by clicking on a map and filtering over aspects of context.

In the context of the development of mobile map applications with capabilities for map generalization and abstraction, we propose a methodology for content exploration that uses content zooming as a technique to change the degree of abstraction of map content independently of the map scale. We concentrate on „foreground data” (rather than the base map, or map background), and more precisely on POI data and thus on point generalisation. Content zooming provides the user with the capability to change the amount and the granularity of foreground information presented, while keeping the geometric map scale the same. Content zooming allows overriding the effects of ‘standard’ map generalisation, focusing on optimised content representation to aid the information seeking task of a mobile user. It is thus complementary to map generalisation. Three cases of content zooming operations are distinguished: two cases apply changes to the amount of foreground data presented, while the third case changes the granularity of the foreground data. The paper defines these cases and proposes technical solutions for each of these, illustrating them with examples from a research prototype.

GeoInformatica, 2017

Spatial information and especially maps have become ubiquitous: many websites rely on maps for different purposes. Maps are used on mobile devices, for navigation systems, in analysis and planning tools, for information visualization, or in gaming. In many cases, these maps are not a static picture but support interaction, e.g. in order to change the displayed area, to find specific sites of interest, or even to edit the map and/or its underlying information. While map-making has a long tradition and consequently benefits from a large body of research to draw from, this is not true for map interaction. In contrast to map-making, there is no agreed-upon set of rules or guidelines that have emerged with respect to how to design interaction with maps. When looking at different popular web services or applications that use interactive maps, a broad range of different approaches become apparent. How we work with interactive maps thus is not only inconsistent across systems but can also be quite awkward. Even simple queries can require a lot of interaction, and the formulation of complex queries is sometimes not even possible-although we know more about the user, the context, and the task than ever before. Given the rapid proliferation of interactive maps and our increasing dependency on them (e.g. in the context of location-based services), a

W2GIS, 2012

In recent years, geographic information has entered the mainstream, deeply altering the pre-existing patterns of its production, distribution, and consumption. Through web mapping, millions of online users utilise spatial data in interactive digital maps. The typical unit of visualisation of geo-data is a viewport, defined as a bi-dimensional image of a map, fixed at a given scale, in a rectangular frame. In a viewport, the user performs analytical tasks, observing individual map features, or drawing high-level judgements about the objects in the viewport as a whole. Current geographic information retrieval (GIR) systems aim at facilitating analytical tasks, and little emphasis is put on the retrieval and indexing of visualised units, i.e. viewports. In this paper we outline a holistic, viewport-based GIR system, offering an alternative approach to feature-based GIR. Such a system indexes viewports, rather than individual map features, extracting descriptors of their high-level, overall semantics in a vector space model. This approach allows for efficient comparison, classification, clustering, and indexing of viewports. A case study describes in detail how our GIR system models viewports representing geographical locations in Ireland. The results indicate advantages and limitations of the viewport-based approach, which allows for a novel exploration of geographic data, using holistic semantics.

33-49 in Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau (eds.), Moving Data: The iPhone and the Future of Media., 2012

A WIDE RANGE OF innovative navigation software is being developed for the iPhone that makes new ways of navigating urban space possible. Interactive tours, augmented reality, locative media, and mobile navigation all contribute to an expanding and transforming fi eld of cartographic screen practices that not only represent but also create space: a screenspace . This chapter explores how Apple's iPhone allows for a creative navigation that constructs such a hybrid space in which pervasive presence, embedded pasts, and evolving futures intersect.

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2018

The aim of personalized maps is to help individual users to read maps and focus on the most task-relevant information. Several approaches have been suggested to develop personalized maps for cities, but few consider the spatial knowledge of its users. We propose the design of “cognitively-aware” personalized maps, which take into account the previous experience of users in the city and how the urban space is configured in their minds. Our aim is to facilitate users’ mental links between maps and city places, stimulating users to recall features of the urban space and to assimilate new spatial knowledge. To achieve this goal, we propose the personalization of maps through a map design process based on user modeling and on inferring personalization guidelines from hand-drawn sketches of urban spaces. We applied this process in an experiment with tourists in Madrid, Spain. We categorized the participants into three types of tourists—“Guided”, “Explorer”, and “Conditioned”—according to ...

or long, internet search has been performed almost exclusively at a distance-from one's own desktop computer. When the search contains geographical information, it has been justifiable to provide the entire map of the environment. Such a map typically allows the user to integrate the represented information into his/her geographical survey knowledge. Most recently however, the increasing number of searches is performed from mobile devices, out in the world, and considers places located at closer proximity, within the spatial context of the searcher. And yet, in mobile-based navigation, the only substantial progress in relation to desktop-based (or traditional paper-based) representations is the presence of a "You-Are-Here" indicator. The traditional approach of providing the map of the entire relevant area in order to aid its integration into the searcher's existing survey knowledge thus presents an unmerited cognitive processing challenge. In addition, the sole action of looking at a map (not to mention its processing) seems superfluous. We argue that human-computer interaction for spatial searches should be (a) based on local, egocentric cues, intuitively preferred in human spatial behavior instead of global, allocentric, representations of the entire environment, and (b) confirming to the ideas of HINTeractions [1] and calm computing , where the output

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2007

Computer-generated maps have become commonplace over the past decade. Most internet search engines, for example, have the ability to generate maps in response to spatial queries and routes between specified origins and destinations. Advances in mobile computing technologies provide access to these mapping capabilities from virtually any location on the Earth's surface. Maps and map-making have become ubiquitous, and this phenomenon requires cartographers to rethink basic concepts about map design and map use. In this special issue we present five research projects that are focused on the emerging field of ubiquitous cartography. These projects were selected, in part, because they are representative of key research challenges that face the cartographic research community. In this introductory paper, key terms are defined and research challenges outlined. By way of this collected set of papers, ubiquitous cartography is presented as a new and important arena for cartographic research.

Map-based Mobile Services, 2005

This chapter examines the usability of topographic maps on mobile devices. To evaluate this usability, field tests in a national park were arranged with a group of test users as a part of the GiMoDig project 1. The purpose of the evaluation was to identify preliminary design principles for maps on small displays, as well as the main benefits and obstacles in using topographic maps on mobile devices. As a result of the user test, the mobile contexts relevant for topographic mobile maps were identified. Regarding mobile map services, the most important context of use is currently the location of a user. However, several other contexts worthy of attention were: system, purpose of use, time, physical surroundings, navigational history, orientation, user, and cultural and social contexts. How some of these contexts were considered for the implementation of adaptive maps, is also described. As is normally seen in the iterative process of user-centred design, the implementations presented here will also be evaluated, and the experiences gained will be used in the second round of user-centred design cycle.

Crossroads, 2002

Traditional MUDs and MOOs lack support for global awareness and simple navigation. These problems can be addressed by the introduction of a map-based navigation tool. In this paper we report on the design and evaluation of such a tool for MOOsburg, a graphical 2D MOO based on the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. The tool supports exploration and place-based tasks in the MOO. It also allows navigation of a large-scale map and encourages users to develop survey knowledge of the town. An evaluation revealed some initial usability problems with our prototype and suggested new design ideas that may better support users. Using these results, the lessons learned about map-based navigation are presented.

A user study was conducted to compare the performance of three methods for map navigation with mobile devices. These methods are joystick navigation, the dynamic peephole method without visual context, and the magic lens paradigm using external visual context. The joystick method is the familiar scrolling and panning of a virtual map keeping the device itself static. In the dynamic peephole method the device is moved and the map is fixed with respect to an external frame of reference, but no visual information is present outside the device's display. The magic lens method augments an external content with graphical overlays, hence providing visual context outside the device display. Here too motion of the device serves to steer navigation. We compare these methods in a study measuring user performance, motion patterns, and subjective preference via questionnaires. The study demonstrates the advantage of dynamic peephole and magic lens interaction over joystick interaction in terms of search time and degree of exploration of the search space.