Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Lessons Learned from Previous Developments
Methods for testing the usability must be adequate for the evaluation of different
aspects of the broad field of user behaviour. This idea was expressed by Wodtke
(
2003
) and Rubin and Chisnell (
2008
) and further taken into account in the DIN EN
ISO 9241 (
2011
): “Ergonomics of Human System Interaction”.
Rubin and Chisnell (
2008
) describes a product as usable if the lowest possible
level of frustration occurs in its use. He specifies the usability as a product by the
following parameters:
Usefulness
Efficiency
Effectiveness
Learnability
Satisfaction
What lessons could be obtained through the development and the evaluation of
Internet-based cartographic information systems and what kind of conclusions
could be drawn for following developments?
Knowledge gained from the development and the evaluation of several carto-
graphic information systems were obtained as lessons learned and were taken into
account in further developments.
Usefulness
In more recent projects, the determination of user groups, user needs and content
requirements was undertaken in a much more structured form than in previous
implementations. The thematic focus as well as the presentation of the topics was
much more oriented on the basis of the results of the qualitative interviews, the user
access on specific questions and issues was paid closer attention. Thus, a signifi-
cantly higher usefulness of the system was obtained, which was also confirmed in
several evaluations concerning this aspect. The holistic approach of the data content
integration was regarded by the users as outstanding, in particular the ability to use
the cartographic information system in the usual workflows.
Efficiency
The efficiency of a system, which can be determined as the ratio between benefits
and costs could be considerably improved by an overall system performance
increase in recent applications. Nevertheless the fact that newer systems are even
more map-centred than earlier ones, the creation and presentation of the graphical
