While ethnographic methods are an established tool for requirements analysis in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), they have seldom been used for the design of electronic map systems. This chapter presents an ethnographic study of city tourists' practices that draws out a number of implications for designing map technologies. We describe how tourists work together in groups, collaborate around maps and guidebooks, and both `pre-' and `postvisit ' places. These findings have been used in the design of the `george square' system which allows tourists to collaborate around an electronic map at a distance.

Spatial orientation can take place in three separate scales: scenes within an individual's visual field, surrounds including information to the front, side, and rear, and neighborhoods, that contain points not visible from the current location. When asked to orient in a surround people are especially sensitive to information to their fronts and backs. However if the surround has been experienced by viewing a map time to access information about a point increases with the angle between the forward direction and the queried point. As people become familiar with neighborhoods they first notice landmarks, then paths between landmarks, and finally develop configurational knowledge of the key locations. The last stage is not always reached, even after years of experience. On the average, people can orient themselves toward an unseen point in a neighborhood with an accuracy of about twenty degrees. However there are very large individual differences in orienting ability. People can acquire or...

Three experiments investigated spatial orientation in a virtual navigation task. Subjects had to adjust a homing vector indicating their end position relative to the origin of the path. It was demonstrated that sparse visual flow was sufficient for accurate path integration. Moreover, subjects were found to prefer a distinct egocentric or allocentric reference frame to solve the task. “Turners” reacted as if they had taken on the new orientation during turns of the path by mentally rotating their sagittal axis (egocentric frame). “Nonturners,” by contrast, tracked the new orientation without adopting it (allocentric frame). When instructed to use their nonpreferred reference frame, both groups displayed no decline in response accuracy relative to their preferred frame; even when presented with reaction formats based on either egoor allocentric coordinates, with format unpredictable on a trial, both groups responded highly accurately. These findings support the assumption of coexisting spatial representations during navigation.

Spatial cognition and program development have both been examined using contrasting models. We suggest that sex-based differences in one’s perception of risk is the key to relating these models. Specifically, the survey map approach to navigation and the top-down development/comprehension strategy use similar and related high risk cognitive skills that males show a preference towards. Conversely, the route-based approach to navigation and the bottom-up development/comprehension strategy use similar and related low risk cognitive skills that women show a preference towards. On the assumption that programmers are consistent in their risk-taking behaviours, we believe that they will, as much as possible, tend to use the same strategy when performing program development and comprehension. In an experimental setting, we compare programmer’s performance on spatial cognition and program comprehension tasks. The correlations that we found suggest that programmers use equivalently risky strategies for program comprehension and spatial cognition. Thus, there is evidence that similar cognitive skills are used for spatial cognition and program comprehension/development, and that the similarities are a consequence of sex-based differences in risk-taking behaviour. 1

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A major component of any field data collection activity is finding and navigating to sample units, such as housing units and businesses. The degree of effort allocated to this phase varies widely. However, these tasks are more challenging when staff receive assignments in unfamiliar areas or when sample units are hard to find, as may be the case with unmarked

In some surveys, it is of interest to record geospatial data such as coordinates for housing unit locations, road networks, agricultural field boundaries, and water body boundaries as part of the survey data collection process. These data objects are represented as shape data (i.e., points, lines, polygons), and are inherently different from coded and fixed format questionnaire responses. Geographic information system (GIS) software can be used to record shape data, but the differences between a GIS software environment and that of a standard computer-assisted survey instrument are substantial. Questions arise in balancing the linear structure of protocol enforcement with the iterative interactions that occur when working with geographic information; how to represent and configure feature editing environments for unskilled users; and whether constraints should be placed on the digitizing process to balance the accuracy of geographical feature delineation with the time spent recording the data. GIS software environments for survey data collection were explored via investigations with two agencies in the US Department of Agriculture. One study was conducted with National Agricultural Statistics Service field interviewers, who had not previously been exposed to computer-assisted data collection. Enumerators used pen-based tablet computers and a simplified ESRI ArcView application to delineate field boundaries on digital photographs during interviews with farm operators. Data were collected from observers and enumerators on the interview experience and software use. In a second study, Natural Resource Conservation Service staff were trained in the use of GIS, but varied in the