MenoMaps multichannel maps
By Tapani Sarjakoski & L. Tiina Sarjakoski
Pdf-file of the article, from Positio ICC2011 Special Issue
Hikers in the near future will have the possibility to choose which media to use for interacting with their maps and to retrieve hiking information for planning the hikes: paper maps, web maps, mobile maps or maps on a multi-touch screen.
Indulging in outdoor leisure activities, such as hiking, has become a trend in Finland. Maps have always played a dominant role in planning the hike and in ensuring that you are on the right trail. Outdoor leisure activities still lack useful services for personal navigation, even though many users need easy-to-use mobile guidance while hiking in the forest.
Hiking is more than just the act of going out into nature. Preparing, planning and reminiscing about the trips are also a part of the hiking experience. For such purposes, printed graphic maps, newspapers, web and mobile phones together form an interface to information on nature. Map-based multichannel services open up new opportunities for developing versatile geospatial services. The challenge of such services involves how to exploit their interaction possibilities in such a way that the user would have a holistic user experience with a single service, even when utilising different media channels while interacting with the service.
The voluntary updating of spatial data by social networks is another trend that should be considered when developing map-based services. Users are willing to share their knowledge and information about unknown environments in the form of comments, photos, videos, and so forth with other users and user groups. When users adopt map-based services as a part of their everyday life the user requirements and usability of the service should be considered more thoroughly than ever before. Furthermore, we need to develop services that are also fun, entertaining, and aesthetically pleasing.
A service to be exhibited
The ‘Multi-Publishing in Supporting Leisure Outdoor Activities’ (MenoMaps) project was carried out between the years 2008 and 2010. The main outcome of the project was a map-based multichannel service prototype. The follow-up project ’Map Services for Outdoor Leisure Activities Supported by Social Networks’ (MenoMaps II) is being carried out between the years 2010 and 2013 and is being funded by Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.
The service prototype will be further developed during the MenoMaps II project, and it will be exhibited at the end of 2012 in the new Nuuksio Nature Centre, which is close to Helsinki in Finland, and also in the Töölö Sports Hall in Helsinki.
The project also aims to discover new kinds of possibilities for business models for multi-channel map-based services. We are currently studying different kinds of development challenges. This includes addressing the following questions: What kinds of business possibilities are provided by the new interaction techniques of the map-based services? What kinds of new user experiences and interaction possibilities could the business models being studied provide when designing the user interfaces?
The project is being carried out in co-operation between the Finnish Geodetic Institute (FGI), Department of Geoinformatics and Cartography, and Aalto University, School of Art and Design, the Department of Design. The other partners in the project represent the entire value chain for leisure outdoor services: Nuuksiokeskus Ltd. (Finnish Nature Centre), Folkhälsan Utbildning Ab (a sports institute), UpCode Ltd. (mobile datamatrix solutions), Tunturilatu ry (an association for Finnish outdoor enthusiasts), Karttakeskus Ltd. (map products and services), the City of Espoo, the City of Helsinki, Metsähallitus (Natural Heritage Services), the National Land Survey of Finland, AtlasArt Ltd. (a publishing company), Tracker Software Inc. (outdoor mobile solutions), Sito-group (infrastructure, traffic and environmental services), and Arbonaut Oy (GIS-solutions for forestry).
Channels and architecture of the MenoMaps
The MenoMaps map-based multichannel service allows the user to access the same spatial information contents from a single data core through different channels such as printed maps, a web map, a mobile map application, and a map application on a multi-touch screen. The channels of the service are linked through the UpCode data matrix technology, supporting users’ easy switch from one channel to another.
Architecture
We implemented the MenoMaps service according to the three-tier architectural style. The presentation tier displays the maps on the client side through the channels. The data access tier supplies the geographical data requested by the clients. MapServer is used for supplying the raster data together with the TileCache caching service, and TinyOWS supplies the vector data. The data storage tier contains and delivers the source data on the server. The data is stored using GeoTiff image files for raster and PostgreSQL database for vector data.
Web map application
The web map application is directed to a use case before or after a hike: exploring the area and planning outdoor activities as well as memorising and sharing the activities. The web map user interface aims at providing a complete tool to interact with the maps being delivered and it shares a similar design with the other channels. We applied the ‘minimalist’ and ‘direct manipulation’ design paradigms to the user interface design, which make it easy to use and spares the user a certain amount of cognitive overload.
We implemented the web map client application using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML web technologies. We used HyperText Markup Language (HTML) for creating the general website layout, the appearance of which we defined using Cascading Style Sheets. The web map interactivity with the user has been produced with JavaScript programming language, which enables the dynamic modification of HTML through the Document Object Model.
The web map functionality has been realised using OpenLayers API, a free and open source web map user interface programming library in JavaScript that takes care of the Open Web Services data requests, data rendering and map interaction.
Mobile map application
We implemented the MenoMaps mobile map application on the iPhone platform based on an in-house built framework. The base framework handles flexible map navigation, data downloading, storage, and presentation. For instance, the map can be oriented according to the walking direction of the user, stored maps can be viewed offline and data can be accessed through standardised Open Web Service interfaces. In addition, map symbols can be used to deliver multimedia in a variety of forms to the users, such as verbalising the environment in audio, presenting a scenic photo or playing back a video of a possible target location.
We further developed the base as part of the project and created an extension specifically for the MenoMaps project. The extension adds a coherent visual interface with the other publishing channels to the base application and allows the UpCode data matrixes to be used to deliver map data to the mobile media. In future releases, the extension will be extended, for instance, to deliver data for the other publishing channels, such as photographs of visited places.
Multi-touch screen
The MenoMaps map application is also being implemented on a multi-touch screen. This is a natural user interface where the fingers of users act as input to the system, much like a mouse and keyboard would on a traditional computer. When users touch the screen surface, the multi-touch screen recognizes the users’ finger movements as gestures. These gestures can be used to control the interface directly and intuitively. The users can, for example, move, rotate and scale pictures just by touching them or complete more challenging tasks, depending upon the application logic.
A multi-touch screen has the advantage of not limiting the number of touch points on the screen surface, which means that, theoretically, any number of users can interact with the interface at the same time. Multiple users, using several different fingers for input, present many challenges for the map interface design, such as non-linear workflows.
MenoMaps maps
We have utilised the FGI’s test environment for ubiquitous geospatial services for the project. The environment includes various spatial datasets and covers Nuuksio National Park and the adjacent outdoor areas. The data core for the MenoMaps service includes the FGI’s LIDAR point cloud, LIDAR DEMs with a resolution of 1-10 m, real- and false-colour orthophotos with a resolution of 0.2 m, and a GPS-based trail database. In addition, we utilised the topographical data sets from the National Land Survey of Finland at the scales of 1:25 000 and 1:100 000.
All of the maps designed for the MenoMaps consisted of information at two levels: 1) static background maps and 2) dynamic thematic contents, including hiking routes and point-of-interest (POI) data. We stored all of the background maps on the server as raster data, while making the overlaid thematic content available as vector data. We developed the design of the vector data to fit together with the background maps.
In the design core, we fixed the use of six scale levels for the web maps (1:1500-1:48000) to be able to cover the full visualisation potential of the available data sets, to satisfy the expected user needs of the national park visitors and to serve as the starting point for adapting the design to the other channels. Furthermore, related to the use contexts (generic, hiking, biking, skiing), we created the design for several map types, which we named the ‘Topographic map’, the ‘Relief map’, the ‘Forest map’, the ‘Orthophoto maps’ and the ‘Winter map’.
Usability testing
We have conducted usability evaluations according to the user-centred design approach for the web map application, the mobile map application on an iPhone and printed maps. We evaluated the printed maps by utilising questionnaires that were distributed to an information centre in Nuuksio National Park. Three of the maps accompanying the questionnaire were test maps created at the FGI and one of the maps was part of a ‘Karttakeskus Nuuksio-Luukkaa outdoor map’ available on the market. We received a total of 538 completed questionnaires, and we are still in the process of conducting the final analysis.
The MenoMaps multi-publishing service, as well as the different channels, is being further developed, and we are considering the results of the usability evaluations during this process. The consistency of the multi-publishing service is one of the key issues to ensure and it is also one of the greatest challenges in designing multichannel services.
Welcome!
The final goal of the MenoMaps project is – on top of the research challenges – to encourage citizens of today’s technology society to find their way to the recreational activities in nature and to have fun. If you pass through Helsinki during autumn 2012, you are welcome to visit Nuuksio Nature Centre and to see how the MenoMaps meets this challenge!
And if you cannot come to Finland, you may still go to the Internet and click on the MenoMaps web map (www.fgi.fi, available August 2012) with soundscapes: you will hear birds singing in Nuuksio National Park.
Authors
Professor Tapani Sarjakoski, Head of Dept., MenoMaps project leader, Finnish Geodetic Institute, Department of Geoinformatics and Cartography
MenoMaps Project Group:
at the Finnish Geodetic Institute, Department of Geoinformatics and Cartography
Dr. L. Tiina Sarjakoski, Chief Research Scientist, MenoMaps project manager
Dr. Juha Oksanen, Specialist Research Scientist
Hanna-Marika Flink, Research Scientist
Pyry Kettunen, Senior Research Scientist
Janne Kovanen, Senior Research Scientist
Jaakko Kähkönen, Senior Research Scientist
Mari Laakso, Senior Research Scientist
Ulla Pyysalo, Specialist Research Scientist
Mikko Rönneberg, Research Scientist
Friederike Schwarzbach, Research Assistant
at Aalto University, School of Art and Design, the Department of Design
Jari-Pekka Kola, research assistant,
Salu Ylirisku, design researcher
6.8.2011 10:25