A review of research investigations related to user-centred design for geo-information products

Abstract

This article is based on our participation in the workshop “Envisioning the Future of Cartographic Research,” one of the ICC 2015 pre-conferences. In order to answer the question posed to the workshop participants—“How can we best develop a systematic understanding of the intersection between human abilities (perception, cognition, affective), design decisions (graphic and interactions), and map use context?”—we realized that from the results of some of our research projects, it may be possible to build a systematic understanding of human abilities, design decisions, and map use context under the assumption that the design of a geo-information product could be developed in agreement with the user-centred design (UCD) approach. This article aims, then, to present some results of our research projects, the main goal of which is to develop investigations that are defined based on the relationship between geo-information solutions and the theory of cartography and geoscience. Those projects have been in development for the last 10 years, and here we describe six of them: two at the doctoral level and four at master’s level.