Alexandra Papadopoulos
Alexandra Papadopoulos is a software developer, user experience designer and author. She studied Film/Video at ZHdK and Computer Science at ZHAW and has over twenty years of experience as a developer, entrepreneur and designer of digital products. She is currently with the consulting and software company Garzotto GmbH.
About the talk
When are we there? – The Guide: spatial information and geographical data along a time axis
How can different geographic information systems be made accessible in such a way that hikers can derive the greatest benefit from them? How can we present the most useful GIS data to our target group in our app Swiss Pro Map? What are the possibilities for doing this in a map app – besides artfully adding even more layers, elevation profiles and points of interest?
In our app Swiss Pro Map we have added a feature that shows what there is to experience and see along a route. When is the highest point of the hike reached? How long does it take to get to the mountain inn? Can the post bus in the village still be reached in time? We created a guide who knows all the information about a route. This information is not only displayed for edited and selected routes, but is calculated locally and in real time for every route that a user records, imports or creates with our app.
The design process of the Guide shows the problems and opportunities of this approach. Not only is time experienced differently – it expands when going steeply uphill in barren terrain or it races by on trails that are full of variety – it can also be represented and perceived differently. We show how we organize geographic information along a time axis, making it accessible to the user in a meaningful way that may move from a purely two-dimensional representation to open new opportunities.