Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1 Order of the stimuli
(and medium) for each user
group
Trial number
Group 1 (odd)
Group 2 (even)
1
Assesse (digital)
Ciney (digital)
2
Ciney (paper)
Assesse (paper)
3
Daussois (digital)
Leignon (digital)
4
Leignon (paper)
Daussois (paper)
5
Onhaye (digital)
Walcourt (digital)
6
Walcourt (paper)
Onhaye (paper)
other group saw the same stimulus on digital medium and vice versa. Both groups
started with a digital map and the next five maps were displayed alternately between
paper and digital. An overview of which participants saw which stimuli and in what
order is given in Table
1
.
Task
Each participant had to conduct a visual search on the six stimuli. The visual search
task was selected because this is often executed
on a map: finding one
or multiple point(s) of interest. The participants were instructed that they had to
locate three labels in the map image. These labels were listed in the lower left
corner of the screen on which both the digital and paper stimuli were presented (see
Fig.
1b
and section “Apparatus and Set-Up” for the set-up). The same list was used
for the corresponding paper and digital stimuli. The participants could choose in
which order they wanted to search for the names. Forcing the participants to search
the names, for example, in the same order as they are listed could distort the
participant
in real life
'
'
s natural search behaviour and thus attentive behaviour. Nevertheless,
the participants had to indicate their search strategy in the post-study questionnaire.
After the participants had found all three labels on a certain stimuli, they had to
indicate this to the moderator. If a paper map was depicted, the moderator would
detach it from the screen and present the next map digitally on the screen. If a
digital map was depicted, the moderator would depict a black screen and attach the
next paper map on the correct location to the screen (see also section “Apparatus
and Set-Up”). The participants eye movements were recorded during the visual
search.
After completing the six trials, the participants had to fill in a questionnaire to
obtain background information (age, sex, education), but also regarding the famil-
iarity with the depicted regions, their search strategies, etc.
'
