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NearMe: Dynamic Exploration of Geographical Areas

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Human Interface and the Management of Information. Information Presentation and Visualization (HCII 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12765))

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Abstract

Web GIS offer precious data to explore geographic areas but they might overload the user with large amounts of information if (s)he is unable to specify efficient search queries. Services such as OpenStreetMap and Google Maps support focused information search, which requires people to exactly define what they are looking for. However, what can be searched within a specific area mainly depends on what is located there. Thus, the question is how to provide the user with an overview of the available data (s)he can look for, instead of forcing her/him to search for information in a blind way.

This paper attempts to address this issue by introducing the NearMe exploration model. NearMe offers a search lens which, positioned on a geographic map, enables the user to discover the categories of Points of Interest that are available in the selected area (e.g., services and Cultural Heritage items) and to choose the types of information to be displayed, based on a faceted-exploration search model. NearMe is based on a semantic representation of geo-data and it is integrated in the OnToMap Participatory GIS, which supports geographic information sharing. We carried out a preliminary user study with 25 participants to assess the User Experience with our model. The results show that NearMe is perceived as easy to use, understandable, attractive and that it efficiently supports exploratory search using geographic maps.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    OnToMap is used as data container in “co3project: co-create, co-produce, co-manage”, https://www.projectco3.eu/it/.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the European Community through co3project: co-create, co-produce, co-manage (H2020 - CO3 Grant Agreement 822615).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    Noemi Mauro, Liliana Ardissono, Federico Torrielli, Gianmarco Izzi, Claudio Mattutino, Maurizio Lucenteforte & Marino Segnan

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  1. Noemi Mauro
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  2. Liliana Ardissono
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  3. Federico Torrielli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Noemi Mauro .

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  1. Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Saitama, Japan

    Sakae Yamamoto

  2. Tokyo City University, Tokyo, Japan

    Hirohiko Mori

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Mauro, N. et al. (2021). NearMe: Dynamic Exploration of Geographical Areas. In: Yamamoto, S., Mori, H. (eds) Human Interface and the Management of Information. Information Presentation and Visualization. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12765. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78321-1_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78321-1_16

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