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Marked-up maps: combining paper maps and electronic information resources

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Abstract

Mobile devices have been used as tools for navigation and geographic information retrieval with some success. However, screen size, glare, and the cognitive demands of the interface are often cited as weaknesses when compared with traditional tools such as paper maps and guidebooks. In this paper, a simple mixed media approach is presented which tries to address some of these concerns by combining paper maps with electronic guide resources. Information about a landmark or region is accessed by waving a handheld computer equipped with an radio frequency identification (RFID) reader above the region of interest on a paper map. We discuss our prototyping efforts, including lessons learned about using RFID for mixed media interfaces. We then present and discuss evaluations conducted in the field and in a comparative, exploratory study. Results indicate that the method is promising for tourism and other activities requiring mobile, geographically-related information access.

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Notes

  1. Text search of the current page was not demonstrated to participants. One participant used the feature to locate items in the index because he was previously familiar with it.

Abbreviations

RFID:

Radio frequency identification

GIS:

Geographic information system

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Dalhousie University and the National Sciences nd Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for supporting this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Novia Scotia, Canada

    Derek Reilly, Malcolm Rodgers, Ritchie Argue, Mike Nunes & Kori Inkpen

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  1. Derek Reilly
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  2. Malcolm Rodgers
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  3. Ritchie Argue
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  4. Mike Nunes
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  5. Kori Inkpen
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Correspondence to Derek Reilly.

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Reilly, D., Rodgers, M., Argue, R. et al. Marked-up maps: combining paper maps and electronic information resources. Pers Ubiquit Comput 10, 215–226 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-005-0043-6

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