Services According to User Needs

Tailor-made Facilities to Enhance Spatial Communication

The availability of digital spatial data is essential for the functioning of modern societies. This has been recognized by many international initiatives, such as the recent INSPIRE directive in Europe and global GSDI or thematic GMES or GBIF. Such initiatives focus primarily on setting up basic infrastructures for the delivery of spatially referenced data or their metadata. The value of these technical infrastructures is, however, finally evaluated on the basis of the added value of the user-oriented interface services that they are able to support and enable.

By Risto Kalliola and Tuuli Toivonen

Development of user-friendly services is a process of continuous evolution based on user statistics and feedback. Therefore, ambitious and well-functioning solutions are developed through long-term commitments rather than short-lived projects.

A lot of effort has recently been put into spatial data mobilization activities and the development of common standards like the Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS). With these techniques, many of the previous limitations on data sharing and on-line retrieval have been resolved. The adoption of these techniques among national mapping authorities and other primary data producers holds the promise of the development of a functional information infrastructure in Europe and nationally in different countries. The new challenge will be in setting up services that take advantage of the increasing wealth of information and are able to provide it to users in a digestible form. Such services would bring added value to the societies that support their establishment. The INSPIRE directive of the European Union identifies a range of services that each EU country should provide. Shared metadata, viewing and downloading services are consequently being planned and considered in each member state. This implementation process includes much more than just technological decisions, as novel solutions are needed in conceptual, administrative and societal terms. 

Plain Tomatoes or a Delicious Soup?

GI infrastructure building is faced with a dilemma in that the established structures should be versatile, i.e. able to serve everyone. They should deliver raw data sets with adequate metadata for GI professionals or researchers with a variety of interests. At the same time, school kids should be able to see and easily interpret the information that is relevant to them in the form of interactive maps. Administration professionals should find answers to their specific questions, which may be very specific in terms of spatial, thematic and temporal data combinations. As an analogue to these needs, we may view primary data as freshly picked, unprocessed tomatoes. They are useful in this form for certain purposes, but, for example, just as raw data is insufficient in decision-making, plain tomatoes are insufficient for those who want to have a waiter serve them hot tomato soup, with just a hint of basil and mustard, in a bone china soup plate. Despite the number of processing steps needed to get from tomatoes to soup, the quality of the original raw material is essential for the taste. Similarly, when raw spatial data is transformed into geographical information, diverse intermediary and interactive mechanisms are involved. These steps should guarantee that the best ingredients are used to prepare the desired product to a high level of quality and on time.

Within the European Union, the INSPIRE directive provides conditions for harmonized and compatible spatial data infrastructures. In addition, other international spatial data initiatives contribute to the development of mechanisms that enhance the use of geographical information in modern societies. In the current situation, however, the intermediate apparatus is clearly underdeveloped. The most user-friendly solutions are standalone services that do not yet utilize the developing spatial data infrastructures or respect standards. There is a diversity of plans and pilot projects around the world, but no solution has yet resulted in a final model that stabilizes the scene. This makes the play particularly interesting for pioneering developers.

services and their implementation.

Towards a Content-Driven World

Until recently, geoinformatics was technology driven. Now it is obvious that the most revolutionary solutions are increasingly content driven. Abundant spatial data resources are available, numerous technologies can be used to process them effectively, and many alternative procedures and platforms can be used to provide data to the users. The breakthrough applications are those which get the most attention and the most users, and attract volunteer developers to take them further. Google Earth was an innovation of that kind. The package is brilliant: free of charge, an easy-to-use interface, and content with enough detail to fulfil local needs. From the decision maker’s viewpoint, however, the package is unsatisfactory. After the initial excitement, no tools are provided to evaluate the quality of the contents.

The work done in the Envifacilitate project aimed to contribute content-driven development based on established spatial data infrastructures and services (textbox). The primary focus was on facilitating access to high-quality geographic information at various steps of the information-processing chain. The project presented end-user solutions for easier access to metadata, downloading and viewing. As the work was carried out by many actors, the importance of collaboration was also highlighted.

Lounaispaikka Map Service combines local views with the utili­zation of national information resources.
Distributed architecture supports the currency of frequently changing data, such as bird observations.
Photo: Sampo Kunttu.

With spatial data, accessibility is a common bottleneck, and the user community welcomes all mechanisms that mobilize access-restricted data. Free data and spatial data-viewing services have gained much popularity within the Internet community, as they provide an easy and immediate route to the needed spatial data resources. This has, to a degree, happened at the cost of quality awareness. Quality assurance may not be provided, and there may not even be sufficient metadata to assess the origin of the provided data. Still, even within these limitations, some choose to apply imperfect free data in, say, research and education, while others consider the accuracy of spatial information to be so important that it should not be sacrificed in any circumstances. A new concept for spatial data downloading was brought forward by the Envifacilitate project in Finland. The Paikkatietolainaamo downloading facility is based on a concept adopted from the practice of software companies of providing demo versions of their programs for test use for a given period. Accordingly, spatial data from volunteer data producers is lent through the Paik­katietolainaamo facility to registered users to use free of charge for a year. This mechanism has proven to be successful as it increases the availability of spatial data and supports empirical work on it. More details about this facility and its operational mechanisms will be provided in a later issue of GeoInformatics. Another mechanism to increase the availability of spatial data is the University of Turku’s Spatial Data Archive, a repository that increases opportunities to reuse spatial data produced by individual researchers and projects. Its development stems from the fact that beyond the large spatial data sets produced by big actors, there are also a number of smaller spatial data registers that should not be allowed to lie dormant. Data producers deposit their data into the archive and sign a contract covering usage rights, after which the data producer does not need to intervene in its further dissemination. Through browsing the archive’s metadata register, users may find interesting data content which they can acquire after signing a usage contract with the archive. The service does not involve costs for either the data producer or the users. Both of the above facilities are examples of rather simple service concepts that add to the amount and variety of spatial data available to users. The potential of such mechanisms is obvious, as they lower obstructions to availability and widen the use of geographical information overall. Enhanced data access will in turn attract more usage and promote new spatial service innovations.

The Lounaispaikka Map Service eases access to spatial information in SW Finland. Being a locally developed map service, this portal succeeds by concentrating on aspects that are relevant in the region. Nevertheless, it takes advantage of the interface services of national data producers and retrieves, for example, detailed topographic or soil maps from their original sources. Also, frequently updated data sets such as bird observation databases are read directly from their original source, in this case BirdLife Finland databases. The service thus combines a vast collection of nationally and locally-produced spatial information content in a single map service. Additionally, this service presents some new ways of viewing the abundant spatial data using an ordinary Internet browser. Several independent map engines operate in a joint interface. Different map viewers are organized under separate tabs which the user may change on the fly. Each tab provides a collection of data layers and the appropriate tools to view and study them. There are dozens of pre-arranged combinations of data layers, visualized cartographically as clearly and intuitively as possible. Advanced users may also perform individual layer combinations. The Lounaispaikka Map Service has succeeded in overcoming some of the typical problems of map service designers, such as the limited size of the computer screen and the contradiction between a high degree of freedom for users and the clarity of the user interface. Ordinary users typically expect to see easy-to-understand map presentations, while professional users may desire tools to create their own map compositions, even at the cost of sacrificing cartographic clarity. Challenges in International Services The ICZM Map Viewer combines international data content from diverse sources, such as the European Environment Agency and the Baltic Sea region’s organization, Helcom, with data from national data producers. Cross-country data combinations do, however, contain problems that may be hidden from their users. For example, the production of data may have been different in different conditions even though the data may look uniform. These problems are common, especially in national border areas where different data production cultures coincide. Metadata of the data lineage and quality estimates are seldom available, making it more difficult to estimate how suitable the data is for a particular purpose. The ICZM viewer can be seen as a reminder of the need to critically evaluate all the raw data components of Internet map services.

Synergy as Ground

Practical work with spatial data infrastructures and services involves simultaneous integrated actions in different spatial scales from sub-national through national to international. In many countries, national level organizations are just about to emerge, and the process has its unique characteristics in each country. In many cases, different parties within a region look forward to increased collaboration in general terms, which also involves the sharing of their spatial data, but unclear data access and usage rights prevent the transformation of these intentions into practical measures. This hesitation may lead to stagnation that hinders innovative work with spatial data. The mechanisms piloted in the Envifacilitate project revealed new ways to overcome restrictions. When the conditions for collaboration are clear and mutually agreed upon, intentions may indeed be transformed into concrete collaboration that produces joint spatial information services. It is important to acknowledge that the process does not involve technological performance issues only; it is also very much a matter of cartography, communication and user interaction. In advanced services the users should be given enhanced options such as saving workspaces or defining personal user profiles. Semi-automatic GIS analysis tools, map printing options and many other functions would further tailor the services to users’ needs.

Longevity of Services

The establishment of useful spatial data services is, at the practical level, a complex iter­ative process that involves many consecutive work phases. Each time new operations are launched, feedback is gained from their users. In order to reach the corresponding target group, marketing and networking is needed. When conditions are right the service will also market itself, but more user requests will also follow. The developer of an information facility in the Internet thus has to be a kind of juggler who is able to keep many simultaneous processes moving. To be able to do this, the developer has to maintain ongoing contact with the entire process, be innovative and, rather than being afraid to make mistakes, accept risks with an aim to providing ever-improving performance. User feedback provides the key to continuous improvement of the service.

Tuuli Toivonen (tuuli.k.toivonen@helsinki.fi) is a university lecturer in geoinformatics in the geography department at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Both have taken part in building Finland’s SDI and its expert panels, and they coordinated the EU-LIFE funded project, Envifacilitate. The project provides background for the present article. It is based on the project’s Lessons Learned document, available at: envifacilitate.utu.fi/deliverables/ENVIFACILITATE_ lessons_learnt.pdf.