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as it is uncertain whether the trustee will act according to the trustor's
benefits.
In one of the oldest allusions to trust, Plato suggests that people trust others
only if they have a fear of detection and punishment, which prevents
them from stealing or harming. Thus, risk and uncertainty make the trustor
vulnerable but trust is upheld “in the confidence that the trusted will not
exploit this vulnerability” (Bailey 2002, p1 ). In Web GIS risk and uncer-
tainty - with the latter being an inherent characteristic of spatial data-
further depend on the context. For example, the risk is different when
someone uses Google Maps for driving directions compared to when a
user accesses environmental information through a Web GIS and processes
it for decision-making purposes.
Other significant trust components include the trustor's propensity to trust
and their trusting beliefs, and the trustee attributes which “reflect different
components of trustworthiness” (Grabner-Kräuter et al. 2006, p237 ).
Skarlatidou et al. (2010a) explain that the trustee attributes refer to two
categories: the perceptual attributes (the source and its reputation) and
functional attributes (evidence that a trustor collects through interaction
and assessment of the trustee's quality e.g. aesthetics and usability).
HCI studies suggest that both types of attributes can be improved through
interface design. Egger (2001) proposes the use of trust cues related to
branding and improved usability. Shneiderman (2000) suggests the use of
references of past performance and stresses the importance of usability.
Karvonen (2000) links aesthetics to trust and explains how the beauty of
simplicity influences usability and online trust. Other trust features include
external links, photographs, videos (Wang and Emurian 2005) and feed-
back mechanisms (Ba and Pavlou 2002).
Web GIS have their own characteristics, which should be considered.
Skarlatidou et al. (2010a) conducted an expert evaluation on the What's In
Your Back Yard (WIYBY) website and developed a list of trust-based
guidelines. The guidelines refer to both the user interface and the Web GIS
component and have five design dimensions, which refer to both the user
interface and the Web GIS component. According to the authors, elements
such as the map size, and colours may influence trust perceptions.
In another study, Skarlatidou et al. (2010b) recruited ten non-experts to
evaluate the WIYBY website to understand what elements influence their
trust perceptions. After interacting with the system, participants completed
a questionnaire to measure the following: usability, aesthetics, user
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