Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Competitive Analysis Method
for Evaluating Water Level Visualization
Tools
Robert E. Roth, Chlo¨ Quinn, and David Hart
Introduction
A
competitive analysis study
is a usability engineering method administered to
critically compare a suite of similar applications according to their relative merits
(Nielsen
1992
). While most usability engineering methods solicit feedback directly
from targeted end users, a competitive analysis study is a
theory-based
method in
which the design/development team leverages established theoretical principles to
evaluate the collected suite of applications (Roth
2011
). In other words, a compe-
titive analysis study is a content analysis of secondary sources—common to
archival research in social science—conducted for the purpose of usability engi-
neering. While not a replacement for user-based evaluation, a competitive analysis
study may be beneficial in a variety of mapping and visualization contexts, such as
when the design/development team knows little about the application domain,
when a user-based needs assessment study cannot be completed due to limited
project resources or limited access to targeted end users, when there are a large
number of existing applications that implement similar functionality, and when
there is a previous version of the visualization tool already in use. Thus, a compe-
titive analysis study primarily is appropriate during the early, formative stages of
design and development (see Robinson et al.
2005
, for a discussion of formative
versus summative usability assessment).
In this paper, we demonstrate the potential of the competitive analysis method
for cartography through the case study of
water level visualization
, or map-based
visualization tools depicting the exposure or flooding of land as a result of
