Exploring the usefullness of cartographic representations for location‐based services in an Australian context

Abstract

Australian telecommunications providers are preparing to follow the lead of their European, Asian and American counterparts in offering to the broader community one of the most innovative trends in wireless mobile application development ‐ Location‐Based Services (LBS). Outside of Australia, the deployment of LBS has led to a range of different cartographic representations providing everyday users with access to geospatially‐related information. However, it can be argued that the usability and utility of the services and their component representations has not been a priority during development and thus the usefulness of the applications for everyday users cannot be assured. The LBS situation in Australia may turn out to be different from that of the European and US contexts, particularly in terms of user needs, indicating that overseas research findings may not be applicable in the Australian context. This paper details the rationale behind a research program that intends to challenge current methods for the representation of geospatial information in LBS, by trialling new presentation and interaction techniques that may be more appropriate and effective for Australian users. A proposed methodology is presented, based on the application of User‐Centred Design techniques, including an extensive user task analysis, construction of a prototype service and a rigorous target user evaluation. Finally, anticipated benefits for the Australian LBS industry, geospatial community and end users are discussed.