A Multimodal Interface for Personalising Spatial Data in Mobile GIS

Recently the availability and usage of more advanced mobile devices has significantly increased, with many users accessing information and applications while on the go. However, for users to truly accept and adopt such technologies it is necessary to address human-computer interaction challenges associated with such devices. We are interested in exploring these issues within the context of mobile GIS applications. Current mobile GIS interfaces suffer from two major problems: interface complexity and information overload. We have developed a novel system that addresses both of these issues. Firstly, our system allows GIS users to interact multimodally, providing them with the flexibility of choosing their preferred mode of interaction for specific tasks in specific contexts. Secondly, it records all such interactions, analyses them and uses them to build individual user profiles. Based on these, our system returns personalised spatial data to users, and hence eliminates superfluous information that might be otherwise presented to them. In this paper we describe the system we have developed that combines multimodal interaction with personalised services, and that can be used by mobile users, whether they are novices or professionals within the field of GIS. The advantages of our multimodal GIS interface approach are demonstrated through a user interaction study.