Tag Archive for 'Usability'

Adventures in Nokia Maps pt. 3: the POI catalogue

Published on February 5, 2009 in Geomensch. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

IMHO Nokia Maps 3.0 has basically two outstanding features:

  • great cartography on small displays
  • comprehensive POI catalogue

While trying Nokia Maps I usually kept thinking why I would buy Nokia Maps and not use Google Maps mobile, which is a free application. If it’s only for looking up addresses and directions, and I don’t care about the mobile data connection, I’d go for Google. Google does the same or even a better job here.

When it comes to looking up POI nearby, Nokia Maps is way ahead of Google.

The other day I was looking for a post office, because the one I knew was under construction and closed (and the staff there couldn’t tell me where the nearest post office is btw). The official Austrian mail site totally failed on a mobile browser, no chance to get a list of their offices. Google returned a couple of search results considering my location, but would have sent me way far away to a post office in another district, giving nice directions with public transport though. Nokia Maps showed me two post offices in the neighborhood and provided walking directions of course.

Post offices is of course only one category in the catalogue. The POI catalogue seems very well organized and can be explored quickly, even tough it’s pretty comprehensive. I found the catalogue better usable and more efficient on mobile devices than a Google Maps mobile search for POI.

Better usable because a search for POI in Google Maps mobile requires you to stop, type and check results. A catalogue you can explore easily while walking, by using only one thumb, just like an iPod. It requires less attention than a text search.

More efficient because a Google Maps mobile search basically returns lots of locally irrelevant results. Google is probably working on that, but in the meantime Nokia delivers better, clearer and more useful local POIs.

Additionally there is an entire guide-section in the catalogue, providing mobile tourist guides I guess. Unfortunately I didn’t try this feature.

Bottom line: people who want more out of mobile maps than just address search and directions should give Nokia Maps 3.0 a shot.

Second Light

Published on October 30, 2008 in Geomensch. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

Second Light is a new development of MS research on Microsoft’s multi-touch device Surface. It basically allows to display additional information in some kind of hidden light layer above the Surface screen. That way, extra map layers, like labels, can be shown on top of a base map without covering geographic objects for instance. It seems to be an interesting option for visualizing and exploring geographic content – makes me wonder when we see Virtual Earth demoing on Surface.

The video below gives a quick demo of how Second Light works.

[via rolf generated content]

Update:

The All Points Blog covers Second Light too, along with other new GeoGoodies from Microsoft.

Map index usability

Published on April 17, 2008 in Geomensch. Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Our partners had a wonderful idea for the start page of an online atlas we are working on together. Obviously it’s inspired by iTunes’ Cover Flow, but as we think works well on map indexes too.

It basically works similar to album art, where visual impressions are associated with audio. On the map flow, the visual impression, the color scheme and map type identified on the map thumbnail, can be associated with a certain topic, theme or map in particular – greenish is likely environmental, blue/red tones demographic, etc.

By using AJAX, the map flow is very efficient in terms of occupied space on the page. Instead of long lists and tables, the map flow only needs the size of one paragraph on the page, where users can browse the entire atlas by flipping map thumbnails around (which is fun too btw).

I can’t demo it here, you’ll have to head over to our application to see it in action. A rudimentary English version is available.

ÖROK Atlas Map Flow

There is still much work ahead of us. For the next upcoming release we reduced the amount of newly planned features and try to focus on usability improvements instead. After all, we want an easy to use thematic mapping tool.

It’s still too early to talk in numbers, but I expect the map flow to reduce the bounce rate and make our maps more accessible.

Kids

Published on February 2, 2008 in Geomensch. Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

That was by far the most amazing moment of the day: a kid instantly figured out how our user interface works and started playing around with the map.

Kid

Erase your trace

Published on December 11, 2007 in Geekery. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

A good new reason to give Ask another try as search bar default: unlike most other search engines, Ask released a tool, called AskEraser, which allows users to delete their search histories entirely from Ask servers.

User privacy as PR campaign: I’m not sure if this will help Ask a lot since the average search engine user is not aware or simply does not care about left online traces.

However, in terms of user interface and smart features Ask is already my favorite search engine. The problem is that Google still returns better search results and eventually that’s what counts in search engine business. Otherwise the Ask logo would already have been set as default on my upper right corner too… [via NYT]

Spanning words

Published on November 22, 2007 in Geomensch. Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

What was wrong with the old Flickr map?

Maybe it’s just me, but I think the continent spanning words (tags) on the new Flickr map are a step backwards regarding usability, compared to the really nicely done photo-dots-generalization the previous version of the map had. The only interactivity on the new map is clicking tags, right? Or did I miss something? I really preferred the old version where I could zoom down to photo-dots and browse through photos directly on the location.

Well, it must be my dot-fetish, but on the new user maps the generalized dots are gone too. Now you see the most recent (or interesting) photographs placed on the map, which is just another exploring approach. If you scroll through the pictures on the bar, the map changes too, unfortunately not vice versa. When you pan the map, the photos aren’t updated in the bar. Would be something nice to have too.

Whereas the new Places feature is awesome. One page per place, containing excellently chosen photographs, active groups and people on that location. Very well done. Even though I wish I could navigate to other places more easily. With some interactivity on the small map or links to popular neighboring places for instance. Currently I have to go up and down in regional hierarchy or use the location search.

Vienna on Flickr Places

Even Flickr’s “Safe Search” works in Places. Although there are some properly tagged photos (and a whole lot more!) for an unluckily named Austrian village on Flickr, it remains for some reasons banned in Places…

Android

Published on November 13, 2007 in Geekery. Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I guess I just changed my opinion about simplicity and cell phones…

Seems like some developers did their usability homework.

Interactive light map

Published on October 15, 2007 in Geomensch. Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

The project that kept me awake over the last couple of weeks was a mapping installation we did for the 50th year anniversary of our institute.

Imagining Europe

I don’t want to brag, but I think this thing is pretty cool: it’s a horizontal map projection on a table, where users interact with the projection, with the light, itself by moving little backgammon tokens around. That way visitors can explore the map and selected spatial and regional indicators.

It’s based on a video tracking system, set up by Emanuel, together with a light-weighted mapping application responding to those incoming video signals by querying a database and visualizing geographic data. The concept is rather simple, but as so often, the devil is in the details. Proper handling of the video signals was pretty tricky in our case and made us stay late at the office. Even though we couldn’t implement every planned feature, it was the first time we used video tracking for user interaction, we are very satisfied with our first release. The response from our visitors was great and we definitely see potential and will keep on working on that project.

However, I observed one noteworthy point while watching some visitors interacting with the map: several people standing around the table started instantly talking about the map, the shown maps triggered communication and people started discussing the presented indicators. Unlike clean paper printouts or maps on screens, people could touch the map, grab the tokens, place the tokens, touch and point with their hands and fingers onto the map without fearing canapé-greasy finger prints. Although it was only light, it seemed like they had a tool in their hands they could play with.

One visitor told me that the installation reminds him of the old large plotted paper maps and plans.

Another point for this vivid communication is the distance to the screen I think. If the projection would be vertical, every visitor would be at another distance, standing on another level, to the image. While standing around a table, where the image is in the center, the distance from the image to every visitor is constant. Maybe that makes visitors feel more equal and makes it easier for them to join the discussion. Nobody is standing behind, everybody can access – view, grab, touch – the information the same way.

If I remember correctly Microsoft had a research project or something about making the virtual PC desktop real. After I’ve seen what you can achieve with “grabbing & touching” I definitely think that’s the future. The mouse is a 30 year old idea. Isn’t that almost ancient in the world of technology?

Lessons learned today

Published on September 29, 2007 in Geekery and Random Box. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
  1. Google killed the hyperlink by introducing PageRank. The idea behind PageRank (the more links point to a site, the higher the site’s relevance) makes some of us be suspicious before clicking a link. Why is this link there? Does it provide further information for me or is it just a backlink to increase the target site’s PageRank? Am I’m going to be cheated? Before Google came, hyperlinks provided information and content, not backlinks. Yes, once upon a time, content was the scale for relevance.
  2. Internet is fun. Social software is even more fun and questioning male ranking concepts is allowed. People, don’t take it too serious!
  3. The last word on blog-usability isn’t spoken yet. The constantly changing chronological site structure is irritating. And that’s only the beginning.
  4. In Austrian rural areas you can do solid business while enjoying a relaxing life.
  5. None of the BarCamp alpha geeks today had an iPhone. The iPhone is an illusion.
  6. Currently there is no way to make easy money with blogs.
  7. I support the Free Burma Action because I felt the need to do something. I’m a lucky person, I was born into a world where previous generations already had fought for my rights. I’m deeply impressed by the people in Burma, who stand peacefully up in front of armed soldiers, demanding nothing more than democracy. Something I experienced my entire life as given. Nobody can tell if this action will help, but it’s still better than do nothing and wait what happens next. Thanks to all the valuable input at the Free Burma Session!
  8. Who’s a blogger, who’s not. Or, does anybody really care about that term?
  9. Metablogs are out, real life stories are in. Even in the german speaking blogoshpere.
  10. Note to myself: adjust Facebook application’s privacy settings immediately and change email address annually!

Facebook does make me think

Published on September 24, 2007 in Random Box. Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Facebook onlineFacebook is telling me I’m online while viewing my profile. Hmm, that’s interesting, why is it saying I’m online? Are there actually people not knowing they are online when they access a website?

The situation reminded me of Steve Krug’s web usability bible “Don’t Make Me Think!”: because of telling me I’m online I started thinking if I could view my profile without being online. It won’t be possible, right? So why does Facebook then say I’m online when there is no other option to view my profile. Note: users must log-in to see anything more than Facebook’s welcome screen. So there really is no other option like being logged-off and going through profiles.