Thematic Uncertainty Visualization Usability – Basic Methods Comparison
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2011 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Annals of GIS |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19475683.2011.625978 |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19475683.2011.625978 |
| Field | Earth magnetism, geography |
| Keywords | uncertainty visualization; kriging; maps combined and maps compared; evaluation; cognition; parallel and serial information processing |
| Description | Uncertainty of geographic data and visualization can be viewed from different angles. While conceptual and theoretical base is quite wide, visualization tools and pilot projects are rarer, and there exist only few studies dealing with the user’s `ability to cope with uncertainty visualization efficiency. The paper introduces two widely used uncertainty visualization methods – the maps compared and maps combined – and focuses on the usability issues of these methods. A combination of regular kriging interpolation method and interpolation uncertainty values is used for maps compared while whitening approach is applied for maps combined. During the study we electronically interviewed and tested more than 100 participants with backgrounds in geography or computer science. Both above mentioned methods were tested on three different levels. On the first level the intuitiveness of whitening method is questioned. On the second level both methods are compared taking into account simple decoding of predicted value (interpolation results), uncertainty decoding, and both values decoding at the same time. Finally the ability to compare two or more values is tested for the same combinations. Both correctness and processing time is recorded in order to enable further statistical processing. The overall testing was performed within the web interactive environment developed specifically for the interdisciplinary (cartographic – psychology) purposes. |
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