Communication Aspects: How Landmarks Enrich the Communication Between Human and Machine - Landmarks: GIScience for Intelligent Services - page 195

experience of using map based navigation counter this expectation. The enlarged
signs had no effect on navigation performance, but were rated as a useful feature.
To sum up, essentially all studies presented in this section clearly demonstrate
the advantages spatial information services gain from incorporating landmarks. But
they also show that there are still a range of design challenges, many due to data
issues (discussed in Sect. 5.5.1 ) , issues of selecting truly relevant and identifiable
landmarks (as exemplified in the study of Hile et al. [ 34 ] ), i.e., of getting the context
right (Chap. 4 ) , and issues of finding a common ground in describing landmarks (as
discussed in the beginning of Sect. 6.3.1 ) .

6.5 Summary

In this chapter, we looked at landmarks in the interplay between human users and
spatial information services. We highlighted some of the requirements for machine
spatial communication. We then discussed in detail what it takes for a service
to produce and understand landmark references, both verbally and graphically. In
particular, we argued why it is easier to produce landmarks than to understand them.
As in previous chapters, we also looked at some examples from research that aim
at either of these tasks. Finally, we discussed a range of studies that demonstrate
the power of landmark-based communication in human-computer interaction. This
chapter now concludes our argument for why landmarks are a crucial element for
truly intelligent spatial information systems. The results of the evaluation studies
provide convincing evidence for our hypothesis. However, the studies also illustrate
that there is still work to do.

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