Not Getting Lost in Multi-Scale Maps: Exploring the Anchor Theory in Cartographic Zoom Interactions in the Context of Crisis Management

Multi-scale interactive maps such as Google Maps or OpenStreetMap have replaced paper topographic maps for most professional and daily uses.

Past research told us how to design paper topographic maps at a given scale to make them readable and understandable by human users.

But these rules/guidelines do not apply anymore, and map designers lack guidelines to make maps that are smooth to explore through scales, and it is common for a multi-scale map user to feel lost for a few seconds after a zooming interaction.

The LostInZoom project (Not Getting Lost in Multi-Scale Maps: Exploring the Anchor Theory in Cartographic Zoom Interactions in the Context of Crisis Management) seeks to establish a new zooming paradigms for multi-scale maps, based on multi-scale visual landmarks that act as anchors during the zoom.

To achieve this novel zooming paradigm, we need new grounding knowledge on how people perceive and understand interactive multi-scale maps, in order to design maps and interaction that make multi-scale explorations smoother. The LostInZoom project will be based on three main pillars.

In the first one, we will explore the cognition of multi-scale interactive maps with an experimentation approach, in order to identify the anchors or landmarks that help a map reader locate himself when zooming.

In the second pillar, we will design new cartographic generalisation techniques to derive multi-scale maps that magnify the landmarks that are important for multi-scale exploration.

Finally, the third pillar will be dedicated to the design of new zooming interactions that focus on these landmarks to smooth even more the zooming exploration.