Bancada: Using Mobile Zoomable Lenses for Geospatial Exploration

Abstract

Nowadays, looking at the path between two points on a city map has become a simple task using any modern tablet, smartphone or laptop. However, when exploring maps with different information across multiple layers and scales, users experience information discontinuity. Bancada is a multi-display system developed to investigate the exploration of geospatial information using multiple mobile devices in a multi-display environment. In Bancada, tablets are Zoomable Magic Lenses that augment, through specific geospatial layers, an overview map displayed on a tabletop or on a wall display. Users interact with lenses using touch gestures to pan and zoom; and multi-layer maps can be built by overlapping different lenses. Currently, Bancada is being used to research user interfaces separated across multiple devices and interactions with high-resolution mobile devices. Future work with Bancada includes (i) evaluating the user performance when using one tablet or multiple tablets to control all lenses; (ii) exploring what and how interactions can be performed on an overview map; and (iii) exploring how lenses can be changed.