Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the hypothesis that disproportionate labels may confuse the user. Task 6 has a high
correctness rate, but the time required to perform the task was longer.
A potential problem could be found in the fact that map visualization varies
geographically on GM. Buildings are presented on MQ and GM, while BM shows
only a street network. GM provides shadowed 3D buildings, which cover a signif-
icant part of the map and might be considered disruptive. Moreover, on BM it is
possible to display the interior structure of some public buildings (e.g. shopping
malls, museums); buildings with an interior structure are violet, which is quite
similar to the blue colour indicating bodies of water. This is confirmed by the fact
that 67.8 % of respondents believed the violet colour denotes a body of water
instead of a building, as shown in Fig.
3
, task 4.
In tasks 1-3 in Fig.
3
, respondents were asked to count bodies of water in parks
on MQ. The bodies of water on MQ were ultimately recognized correctly by most
users (over 80 % on average), but most said counting them was very difficult and
the time needed to perform the task was too long.
Tasks 7-12 sought to analyse which type of searching logic on the map portals is
more intuitive for users. MQ is the only portal with the possibility to switch layers
on/off, and finding an object requires that the user first turn on a given layer. By
comparison, on BM and GM all symbols are present on the map all the time. This
implies different searching logics. Users were asked to find the post office nearest to
a particular street intersection (tasks 7-9) and to find the pharmacy nearest to a
particular hotel (tasks 10-12). The chart shows that the correctness rate was quite
similar for all portals (around 90 %) with the exception of finding the pharmacy on
MQ, which was 78 %.
Tasks 13-18 required users to find a particular location on all tested portals, such
as a park or the intersection of a watercourse and a railway. As shown in Fig.
3
, the
results were similar for all portals. The correctness rate was around 95 %.
One interesting result was the fact that women required more time to perform the
tasks than men did. The biggest difference was when locating the post office nearest
to a given street intersection (Fig.
3
, tasks 7-9), in which the average time for men
was around 40 s and around 50 s for women.
Discussion
The test was designed to examine the above-mentioned persistent problems in map
portal visualization. The secondary focus was on differences in map visualization
among the portals tested. It can be said that there are some differences among the
examined map portals, but they are not significant ones. GM seems to be the most
usable map portal, since users needed the least time to perform the tasks when
compared to BM and MQ. This fact can be explained by the popularity of GM in the
Czech Republic, and respondents of a different nationality might produce different
results. The results of a questionnaire established that the majority of respondents
know and use only GM. By contrast, MQ may be considered the least intuitive map
portal because the majority of respondents required the longest time to perform the
