A set of criteria for evaluating map application design in a mobile environment

Abstract. With the appearance of smartphones and affordable mobile phone plans including (internet) data within the last decade, mobile cartography in the sense of map applications became available to a wide user group including professionals and non-professionals. This paper defines the field of mobile cartography, deals with new research areas and prerequisites concerning mobile cartography and a set of criteria for evaluating map applications has been derived. For this work, the criteria have been applied to several map applications in order to evaluate them and present recent features and possible actions. In particular, the focus has been set on high-quality map applications for Austria and on novel navigation and routing capabilities. Results showed that the guideline presented in this paper can already be well applied but can still be improved upon.