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The relevance of geographic information has become an emerging problem in geographic information science due to an enormous increase in volumes of data at high spatial, temporal, and semantic resolution, because of ever faster rates of new data capturing. At the same time, it is not clear whether the concept of relevance developed in information science and implemented for document-based information retrieval can be directly applied to this new, highly dynamic setting. In this study, we analyze the criteria users apply when judging the relevance of geographic entities in a given mobile usage context. Two different experiments have been set up in order to gather users' opinions on a set of possible criteria, and their relevance judgements in a given scenario. The importance ascribed to the criteria in both experiments clearly implies that a new concept of relevance is required when dealing with geographic entities instead of digital documents. This new concept of 'Geographic Relevance' is highly dependent on personal mobility and user's activity, whose understanding may in turn be refined by the assimilation of 'Geographic Relevance' itself.

It is a delicate task to design suitable geovisualisations that allow users an efficient visual processing of the depicted geographic information. Today, such a design task is subject to three major challenges: the ever growing amount of geospatial data at various levels of detail, the diversified applications of that data, and the continuously expanding range of display sizes. In this work, the aim was to enhance the visualisation of relevant geographic information by focusing on utility and usability issues of designing geographic information representations. The relevance of information as an element of utility and its cognitively adequate visualisation as an element of usability was considered. To enhance utility, irrelevant data was separated from relevant data by implementing relevance as a filter and embodying relevance values as attributes of the selected objects. To represent these relevant objects and the context information design principles were formulated and a design methodology proposed that tends to facilitate a user's attentional capacities when processing geovisualisations. In order to design this attention-guiding geovisualisation, use was made of approaches and findings from relevance theory and cognitive psychology with emphasis on neuroscientific principles. A combination of relevance filtering and a cognitively adequate visualisation improved the overall usefulness of geovisualisations and made a substantial contribution to their practical acceptability. This interdisciplinary approach allowed a more precise and valid evaluation of geovisualisation designs.

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In this position paper we describe the concept of geographic relevance and its potential for mobile location-based services employing the mobile Internet. We argue that existing LBS have a too limited concept of location and its application for filtering geographic content. We propose an approach for geographic relevance that extends LBS and location-aware web applications and aims at better supporting mobile users' decision-making based on geographic information. After a short description of an ongoing project we discuss the different roles of location and the different conceptions of space that can be involved in assessing and representing geographic relevance. Finally we provide a few concluding statements that aim at stimulating a cross-disciplinary discussion about location and its importance for relevance. Geographic Relevance in mobile services ABSTRACTIn this position paper we describe the concept of geographic relevance and its potential for mobile location-based services employing the mobile Internet. We argue that existing LBS have a too limited concept of location and its application for filtering geographic content. We propose an approach for geographic relevance that extends LBS and location-aware web applications and aims at better supporting mobile users' decision-making based on geographic information. After a short description of an ongoing project we discuss the different roles of location and the different conceptions of space that can be involved in assessing and representing geographic relevance. Finally we provide a few concluding statements that aim at stimulating a cross-disciplinary discussion about location and its importance for relevance.

This chapter gives a general introduction into map-based mobile services which are considered as value-added location-based services. Starting from an overview of digital map types, their rapidly growing affordances and required learning efforts, the natures and design constraints of offline screen maps, web maps and mobile maps are comparatively studied. The aspects of immediate usability are highlighted as a central thread drawing together the essential research challenges involved in the design process of user-centred mobile maps.