UX Commission Terms of Reference: 2019-2023
- Website: Maintain and expand the ICA Commission website on user experience (UX) issues: https://use.icaci.org/. Usability is identified as one of the 10 main research themes in the ICA agenda, and UX design encapsulates issues related to map use, maps users, and map usability. Map UX design herein is defined as the set of workflows, methods, and techniques needed for a successful user outcome with a map or interactive mapping system, as well as a productive and satisfying user process while arriving at this outcome.
- Bibliography: Maintain an online bibliographic database on user studies and UX design research in Cartography and related fields. The bibliography includes references on the following topics: map-based user interfaces (UI) and user experience (UX) design; user-centered design and usability engineering, as applied to map design and development; studies of user abilities and differences therein; use case studies with print, web-based, and mobile maps; methods and techniques for evaluating products; the use of emerging mapping technologies.
- Student Services: Hold listening sessions to involve young (PhD) researchers and researchers from different cultural environments in all UX Commission activities in order to promote scientific research and support them in their activities.
- Educational Workshops: Organize training workshops for students and non-specialists on map-based user studies and UX design. The resulting educational materials will be made available on the commission’s website.
- Scholarly Workshops: Jointly organize with other ICA Commissions pre-conference workshops in disciplines adjacent to Cartography (e.g., GIScience, Information Visualization, Human-Computer Interaction) aimed at research and design innovations.
- ICA Sessions: Organize special sessions on map-based user studies and UX design at future ICA conferences as well as other regional cartography conferences. Original scientific contributions will be gathered and organized through the UX Commission website.
- UX Research Agenda: Jointly organize with other ICA Commissions on research agenda papers and/or special issues on topics intersecting with user studies and UX design. Planned topics include mobile map UX and reproducibility in cartography, although topics will evolve through the workshop process.
- User Studies Handbook: Jointly organize with other ICA Commissions a workshop to produce a handbook on user methods for cartography. The handbook will support an audience of both students and practitioners, treating user methods for basic science and user-centered design. The handbook will discuss best practices for a range of UX methods, breaking down method alternatives by participants, materials, procedures, and analyses.