Title
Investigating presentation of rail-specific spatial information on handheld computer screens
Abstract
Spatial information is one of the most commonly used items of information for rail maintenance workers and providing this information to track workers while mobile offers potential advantages in terms of efficiency and communication accuracy. However, displaying track diagrams and other rail-specific spatial information on the small screen of a handheld computer presents several human computer interaction challenges that need to be considered. Three experiments were conducted to investigate different aspects of presenting spatial information on handheld computers. These experiments were conducted with current job holders at their place of work. The first experiment aimed at investigating the differences between presenting rail-specific information on handheld computers compared with paper-based documents. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, the findings of this experiment demonstrate the potential for handheld computers to provide a more efficient and effective means of displaying rail spatial information. The second experiment aimed to discover the optimum amount of information that can be presented on the screen of a handheld computer device. The results of this experiment demonstrate that although different combinations of length of track and amount of information affect user's performance, the structure of spatial information displayed on the screen is also very important. The third experiment identified that although the type of information presented to the track workers did not have an effect on their performance, postexperiment interviews revealed the importance of the type of information for track workers depending on the type of task they perform. These findings have implications for the design of small screen representations of spatial information in future mobile devices.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1007/s00779-011-0439-4
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
Keywords
Field
DocType
rail-specific spatial information,small screen representation,handheld computer screen,handheld computer,small screen,rail spatial information,handheld computer device,spatial information,mobile hci spatial information handheld computers information visualisation,track worker,track diagram,rail-specific information,Mobile HCI,Spatial information,Handheld computers,Information visualisation
Spatial analysis,Information visualization,Computer science,Human–computer interaction,Mobile device,Multimedia
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
16
8
1617-4909
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
10
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yasamin Dadashi100.34
Sarah C. Sharples223620.39
john r wilson300.34
Theresa Clarke461.34