GeoHCI 2013 – Geography meet Human-Computer Interaction
CHI (Computer-Human Interaction) is the premier conference in the calendar of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) studies. While the first paper that deal with geographic technologies within this conference was presented in 1991 (it was about User Interfaces for Geographic Information Systems by Andrew Frank and presented at a special interest group meeting), geography did not received much attention from HCI researchers in general, though the growth of location-based technologies made it a growing area in recent years. As I noted elsewhere, HCI did received interest in GIScience over the years, with more attention paid to spatial cognition and fundamental aspects of knowledge representation but unfortunately less on interaction design and exploration of user studies.
This sort of loose coupling between GIScience and HCI is also reflected in personal histories. I was aware of CHI and its importance for over 15 years, but I never managed to attend one – until now. When Brent Hecht invited me to join a CHI workshop proposal on Geographic HCI (GeoHCI), I jumped on the opportunity. The process of working together with HCI researchers on coordinating and curating a workshop led to mutual learning about priorities and practices of work of the two different research communities – in the tone and style of position papers, reviews and ways of organising a meeting. The response to the call for position papers was overwhelming and demonstrated the interest from both geography and HCI communities to find opportunities to converse and share ideas.
The workshop itself was excellent, with coverage of many topics that are being actively researched in Geography and GIScience – and the papers and presentation cover crowdsourced/volunteered geographic information, use of geographic information in crisis situations, participatory mapping and citizen science, concepts of place and space, personal memories, and of course many interactions with maps.
My own talk focused on Geography and HCI, exploring the point of view of geography when approaching computing environments to represent and communicate geographical knowledge. I have used human geography and particularly the concept of space/place to highlight the contribution that geography can make. For example in understanding the multiplicity of interpretation of place by using both David Harvey critique of spatial sciences in the understanding of place, and Doreen Massey relational geography description of places as ‘stories so far’ in ‘For Space‘ as a clear example of different conceptualisation of what they are.
One particular point that I highlighted, following the first chapter of Introducing Human Geographies in which a differentiation is made between Geography as ‘writing the Earth’: looking at human-nature relationship in the wider sense, versus ‘writing the World’ : looking at society-space relationships. For HCI audience I described it by rephrasing Don Norman’s differentiation between ‘Geography in the world‘ which is about the way people interact with the physical environment around them, versus ‘Geography in the head‘ which is the cultural, personal and social understanding of the place where they are and how they want to shape their personal activities, memories and interactions. Of course, Geography in the world is easier to represent in computers then the Geography in the head, and my personal view is that too much emphasis is paid to the first type.
Another part of the presentation focused on the importance of Cartography for geographical technologies, and why issues of map scale, media and task context are very important when designing geographic applications. For example, the value of paper as a media and understanding that maps are more about context then about ‘you are here’.
My position paper is available here . My presentation is provided below
In my view, the workshop was very valuable in opening new conversations. I have now a better understanding of the context in which HCI researchers in Google, Yahoo! and Pitney-Bowes Business Insight consider geography and what problems they have. The issue of place and the need to explore platial information came up several times, and we also experienced the multi-sensory engagement with place which are difficult to capture in digital forms. Most importantly, this was an experience in understanding the language and ways of expression that can help in bridging the two communities.
