Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Next Generation of Atlas User
Interfaces: A User Study with “Digital
Natives”
Raimund Schn¨ rer, Ren´ Sieber, and Arzu ¸¨ ltekin
Introduction
Digital atlases have been successfully created and edited for over 20 years, but
essential information about the usability of atlas interfaces is still largely missing.
Similarly to other digital products and technologies, the usability requirements of
digital atlases might differ among older and younger users. This distinction based
on age and behavioral differences in the use of digital technologies has been
classified into “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” (Prensky
2001
). More
precisely, digital natives are considered as those born on 1980 or later, digital
immigrants as those born between 1955-1979, and those born before 1955 are
called “silver surfers” (Cody et al.
1999
; Prensky
2001
). While some critical
opinions are voiced against this categorization (Bennett et al.
2008
), it is commonly
theorized that digital immigrants and silver surfers possess thinking and acting
patterns which may differ from each other as well as from the digital natives (e.g.,
Black
2010
; Thompson
2013
). This reasoning comes from the fact that digital
natives grew up with a ubiquity of digital desktops, mobile devices such as
smartphones or tablets, and not least the Internet.
Digital natives are a major target user group for digital atlases among current
population. Therefore, we contend that the graphical user interfaces (GUI) of digital
atlases need to be optimized specifically for this particular group to enable them to
explore and visualize the thematic content of atlases. Based on this reasoning, we
take the digital Atlas of Switzerland as an example and explore the
preferences
and
performances
of a sample of digital natives in a classroom environment with five
