Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
into account. This underlines the need for research which focuses on use and
usability aspects as well as the methods for evaluating these aspects.
Although the importance of user-centred design is increasingly recognized
among cartographic application designers, often the knowledge about how to
design and conduct user studies is humble. The field of user research and usability
testing is a highly complex one and there is a lack of articles and textbooks about
the methodology of user research for cartographic application design (van Elzakker
and Wealands
2007
). This chapter presents the concept of user-centred design
followed by a framework for user and usability research in the Web-mapping
domain which has been developed as part of the author
'
s doctorate research
(Schobesberger
2012a
) and refined by a meta-analysis of published user studies.
In the end common usability problems which have been identified across several
studies are discussed.
User-Centred Design
User-centred design (UCD) is a design philosophy that originates from the disci-
pline of Human-Computer Interaction (Dix et al.
2005
). The main paradigm of
UCD is to incorporate the needs, wants and limitations of the end-users in all stages
of application design. Through an active involvement of users, an appropriate
balancing of functions between users and technology, and iterative design, UCD
aims to reach high quality product levels, a high utility and high usability of the
end-product, and thus a reduction of support and training costs, higher user satis-
faction and a higher productivity (Jokela et al.
2003
). Gould and Lewis (
1985
) were
among the first researchers suggesting a UCD approach. Today the ISO 9241-210
standard proposes 6 key principles for user-centred design. These are (Travis
2011
):
Explicit understanding of users, tasks and environments. An understanding of
who the users are must be gained in the beginning of design. This knowledge is
gathered by directly studying the users
cognitive, behavioural, anthropometric,
and attitudinal characteristics and by studying their task requirements as well as
the context of use;
Users are involved throughout design and development;
Design is driven and refined by user-centred evaluation. Usability testing should
be carried out throughout the design process;
Iterative design. There should be a cycle of design, test and measure, and
redesign until usability goals are met;
Design addresses the whole user experience (UX). This principle addresses
perceptual and emotional aspects as well; and
The design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.
'
UCD builds on a number of empirical research methods to collect data about the
requirements for an application and for evaluating the usability and utility of
prototypes and final products. In the following a framework for a user-centred
