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In-Depth Information
historical/current storm events or future climate change predictions (Kostelnick
et al.
2009
). The competitive analysis was completed during the formative stages of
design and development of the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Admini-
stration (NOAA)
Lake Level Viewer
, a map-based visualization tool supporting
adaptive coastal management of hazards related to future water level change across
the Great Lakes (USA). The NOAA Lake Level Viewer is a sibling visualization
tool to the NOAA
Sea Level Rise Viewer
(Fig.
1a
), which supports adaptive
management of coastal hazards along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico
shorelines in the U.S. While climate modeling suggests a likely increase in global
sea levels over the next century (IPCC
2007
), regional climate modeling in the
Great Lakes suggests a possible decrease in lake levels, but an increase in the
annual variation of water levels (Angel and Kunkel
2010
; Hayhoe et al.
2010
). The
water levels across the Great Lakes already set or approached record lows in 2012-
2013. Thus, a fundamental redesign of the Lake Level Viewer was necessary to
support the very different adaptive management context in the Great Lakes.
The purpose of the competitive analysis was threefold. First, the competitive
analysis captured existing best practices in water level visualization, allowing for
identification of common design and development solutions to the end of deter-
mining key user needs that must be supported in the Lake Level Viewer. Second,
the competitive analysis suggested possible opportunities for the Lake Level
Viewer, pointing out currently unmet user needs that may be supported by the
tool. Finally, because the tools are compared according to theoretical principles in
cartography, the competitive analysis revealed important gaps between theory and
practice, helping to problematize suboptimal solutions and to stimulate discussion
about functional and technological innovation.
The paper is structured in three additional sections. Our method design is
described in the following section. A total of twenty-five (n
25) water level
visualization tools were compared across two broad themes in cartography: repre-
sentation and interaction. We provide the results of the competitive analysis in the
fourth section, with discussion split between insights related to representation
design versus interaction design. In the final section, we provide a summary of
design recommendations derived from the competitive analysis and report on future
work to bring the Lake Level Viewer online.
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