NearMe: Dynamic Exploration of Geographical Areas

Web GIS offer precious data to explore geographic areas but they might overload the user with large amounts of information if (s)he is unable to specify efficient search queries. Services such as OpenStreetMap and Google Maps support focused information search, which requires people to exactly define what they are looking for. However, what can be searched within a specific area mainly depends on what is located there. Thus, the question is how to provide the user with an overview of the available data (s)he can look for, instead of forcing her/him to search for information in a blind way. This paper attempts to address this issue by introducing the NearMe exploration model. NearMe offers a search lens which, positioned on a geographic map, enables the user to discover the categories of Points of Interest that are available in the selected area (e.g., services and Cultural Heritage items) and to choose the types of information to be displayed, based on a faceted-exploration search model. NearMe is based on a semantic representation of geo-data and it is integrated in the OnToMap Participatory GIS, which supports geographic information sharing. We carried out a preliminary user study with 25 participants to assess the User Experience with our model. The results show that NearMe is perceived as easy to use, understandable, attractive and that it efficiently supports exploratory search using geographic maps.