Exploring Hierarchically Organized Georeferenced Multimedia Annotations in the MobiTOP System

We introduce MobiTOP, a map-based interface for accessing hierarchically organized georeferenced annotations. Each annotation contains multimedia content associated with a location, and users are able to annotate existing annotations, in effect creating a hierarchy. MobiTOPpsilas interface was designed using a participatory design methodology to ensure that the user interface meets the needs of potential users. A pilot study to compare the MobiTOP interface with a space-filling thumbnail (SFT) interface suggested that participants preferred the MobiTOP design for accessing annotations even though the SFT interface was conceptually easier to understand resources.