ABSTRACT
The most important starting-point for people engaged with mapping and cartography must be the awareness that the maps they produce will have to be used by human beings. To serve the needs of both scientific researchers and professional designers of cartographic applications, this chapter focuses on providing guidelines for the implementation of scientific methods and techniques for user-centred design (UCD) and evaluation. It describes the successive stages of UCD which should lead to usable cartographic products. The chapter also focuses on the purposes of map use and the human map users themselves respectively. It presents an overview of the great variety of methods and techniques of doing user research, ending with the plea to combine them into mixed-methods approaches to gain optimal insight into the uses and users of maps. The chapter provides some practical hints for actually doing use, user and usability research in cartography.
