Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
persist: e.g., there is no legend; data is seen as inconsistent—some objects in a given
category are shown on the map while others are not; there is no option to modify the
map by checking boxes to show or hide different layers, and there is no option to
highlight certain categories of objects, e.g., hotels or theatres. There are also
problems with zooming and panning. For example, some symbols or text appear
and disappear randomly with different scales, the step between map scales is too
large, and the visualization between the scales is too varied. Some colours are
considered unintuitive. Another problem is labelling—the placement of the text, its
legibility, etc. The final group of problems in this category is the misinterpretation
of some symbols.
The third category covered search operations. There were two search possibil-
ities: a free search, which allows a user to use search criteria more liberally, and a
search done using different boxes for a strictly defined input, e.g., a country or
address. Some of these problems have been resolved, and others have not. The
resolved problems include those related to default settings—if the user did not
define the country of his location, the site would only give results from the USA.
Another group of problems concerns route or address searching—there was no way
to search for a route by clicking on the map itself, no possibility for multi-stop route
searches and no good methods for route modification. A final problem was centring
the map according to the result irrespective of its location. The unresolved problems
include those concerning visualization of the search result—streets are indicated by
a point instead of a line. There is no possibility of conducting several separate
searches. Moreover, there is no option for enabling a direct return to the search
result, and in some cases users do not know whether the search result is relevant
or not.
The final category is help and guidance. A major problem was the absence of
help, but this has already been settled. Some users identified problems with the
comprehensibility of the help provided.
Following Nivala
s study, the map portals were compared with each other by
visual exploration. Elements of functionality were described for each portal, and its
potential vulnerabilities were recognized.
'
Null-Hypotheses and Pre-test
Based on an analysis of the problems defined by Nivala et al. (
2008
) and an
exploration of up-to-date map portals, null-hypotheses for further testing were
formulated. The null-hypotheses were encouraged by a simple pre-test, which
was performed on 20 geography students. First, weaknesses of each portal were
determined and the students were subsequently asked a simple question. If they
agreed about a potential problem, it was proposed that the vulnerability be evalu-
ated in a user test. For example, the colouring of bodies of water on the MQ map
was considered unsuitable, since the pools in the parks were difficult to distinguish.
