Designing and evaluating a UI for helping users uncover and create missing road segments on a Geowiki

Abstract

Incomplete map data is a persistent problem in map applications, especially those that provide route-finding services. In order to solve this problem, map matching algorithms that take advantage of GPS traces to detect missing map data are emerging and developing quickly in recent years. A number of applications have used this technique to update and repair maps.Cyclopath is a geowiki system designed for cyclists that has been deployed in the Twin Cities in Minnesota for five years. In addition to being a collaboratively edited geographic system, it is also a computational system that computes bike-friendly routes for cyclists. Like other map applications, it too has suffered from the problem of incomplete map data, resulting in that users are not getting the best bike routes. In this work, we designed, implemented, and evaluated a user interface for Cyclopath that lets users step through a set of map update suggestions computed by a map matching algorithm and automatically updates the map as necessary based on user decisions. The interface was evaluated by a user-based experiment to test and validate its user acceptance and usability. The results indicate that this interface is able to effectively help users uncover and fix missing blocks in the map.