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Interacting with geospatial technologies

Article  in  International Journal of Geographical Information Science · March 2011

DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2010.511623 · Source: DBLP

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Anthony C. Robinson
Pennsylvania State University
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328 Book Reviews

administrative regions and boundaries (i.e. the fences) and that have meaning for all of us (the
neighbours) on a daily basis such as housing, water supply and transport. All of these are
carefully planned for within carefully delimited and often nested geographical areas of city,
region and country. Where such an approach often falls down is when planners and policy
makers fail to take into account the needs and opportunities of surrounding areas just the other
side of the boundary line. In many ways, this is a classical GIS problem and we technical GIS-
folk inevitably start thinking of the MAUP, edge effects, extrapolation, network analysis, spatial
interaction modelling and the like. There is none of that in the book but as readers with a GIS
background, who are perhaps interested in these kinds of governance issues that cross planning
and policy jurisdictions, then we can fill in the gaps. The book uses a few well-aimed and
researched case studies with which the authors are intimately familiar. These include the Calgary
Region, Cape Cod, Central California and Utah. Ten guiding principles and five key questions
for regional governance are provided as a key message, together with eight actions to be
followed in ensuring successful outcomes. The book is not about theory but is more about
best practice that has been learnt through doing and as such can be regarded as more of a manual
than an academic text. If you are doing or about to do action research on trans-boundary
governance problems, then this is perhaps a good reader to get you started along the right road.

Steve Carver
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Email: s.j.carver@leeds.ac.uk
# 2011, Steve Carver

Interacting with geospatial technologies, edited by Mordechai (Muki) Haklay, West

Sussex, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010, pp. 310, $105.00, £60.00, E69.00, ISBN 978-0-
470-99824-3

This text comes at a time when the range of geospatial technologies is expanding rapidly, and
their reach is increasing to the point that huge numbers of nonexperts are making use of
geospatial technology on a regular basis. Understanding how to design and evaluate such
technologies across the full range of end-user groups is also a flourishing research area in
GIScience, as evidenced by the substantial body of work highlighted in this book. For these
reasons and also because there is no recent text covering the fundamentals of human–com-
puter interaction (HCI), usability, and their intersection with geospatial technology, I think
this is a very timely and desirable addition to the literature. The last entrants in this realm
were published in the early 1990s, and it is well past time for an updated view.
The stated goal of this work is to provide an overview of user-centered design and
evaluation techniques for geospatial systems. Its information is geared toward two key
audiences: students taking upper-level or graduate courses in geography and related dis-
ciplines; and software developers who work with geospatial technology and are seeking
design and evaluation guidance. Muki Haklay and his team of contributors, many of whom
are active in the recently formed International Cartographic Association Commission on Use
and User Issues, have laid out a sensible higher level structure here that begins in theoretical
concepts in HCI, spatial cognition, cartography, and computer-mediated work. This is
followed with framework material on user-centered design and usability engineering.
Finally, a series of chapters in the third portion focus on practical applications and techniques

DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2010.511623
 International Journal of Geographical Information Science 329

for designing and evaluating geospatial systems. Each chapter includes at least one short
case study vignette intended to contextualize the primary material and ground higher level
concepts in real-world problems. Review questions are provided at the conclusion of each
chapter that should be useful starting points for the discussion in classroom settings.
I think this book succeeds in synthesizing the wide range of relevant themes and
presenting them in a way that should be highly accessible to the nonexpert. This text is
quite appropriate for courses that focus on human-centered GIScience topics and as a general
reference for GIScience developers who wish to understand the nuances of design and
evaluation in the geospatial realm. Furthermore, the bibliography and the suggested further
reading outlined in each chapter consistently present what I think most researchers in this
part of GIScience would consider the essential works that span HCI and GIScience.
One reason this text succeeds is that it contextualizes theory and methods with case
studies that make use of recent geospatial technologies like mashups and mobile GIS
applications as well as more traditional desktop tools. For example, one case study focuses
on user-centered design and usability evaluation of the GeoCommons Maker web-mapping
site, which was launched in late 2008 and became popular in 2009. It is great for a textbook
to feature such timely and relevant technology examples.
No book can cover all the bases, but I would have appreciated additional depth when it
comes to crafting, executing, and analyzing the results of a user test. The basics are provided
here in a way that one could at least quickly find what additional reading should be
necessary, but the gritty, messy details of pre-testing, questionnaire and task design, and
deriving results from quantitative and qualitative data are missing. A chapter that described
in detail the end-to-end process of a case study evaluation in a way that enabled the reader to
replicate the work would be very useful for students who find themselves intrigued by the
topic area but have only academic papers and their necessarily incomplete methodological
details to model their work upon. This is also true for developers, who are unlikely to have
the time to look very far beyond the text when they face the need for user testing.
I am a bit confused at the inclusion of two chapters here on cartographic design principles.
One comes early on in the section of the book on theory, and another comes later on in the
applications section. Although both chapters provide useful information on cartographic
design (and I am typically biased toward all things cartographic as my roots are in cartogra-
phy), I think the two chapters could have been merged and it would have been nice instead to
see additional depth on topics in other chapters on evaluation techniques, methods for
interpreting data gathered from evaluations, or on currently open research questions for
understanding and studying interactions with geospatial technology. On the contrary, the
argument for including extracartographic design material here is that one key audience for
this book is geospatial software developers who are coming from other disciplines outside of
geography, and could well make use of some basic cartographic design knowledge.
To conclude, Interacting with Geospatial Technologies offers a broad and accessible look
at the theory and practice of user-centered design and evaluation of geospatial technologies.
For its intended classroom and developer audiences, it lays the foundations necessary to begin
work in this niche of GIScience. I think it succeeds in large part because of the careful attention
the editor has placed on contextualizing concepts with real-world case studies, and I expect this
book will have a substantial role in many GIScience courses as a result.

Anthony Robinson
Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University,University Park, PA, USA
Email: arobinson@psu.edu
# 2011, Anthony Robinson

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