Evaluating Cartographic Visualizations Using Blank Maps And From the Perspective of the Individual Differences: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The paper concerns a possible method for evaluating cartographic visualizations, with the emphasis on the perspective of the individual differences. Empirical usability testing of a newly proposed cartographic visualization is always an important step in the map-making process. This paper proposes an experimental design for testing the usability of selected cartographic visualizations by using a blank map. A standard topographic map and a specific context map proposed for transport-related tasks were used for the pilot study to examine the proposed testing methodology. An interactive experiment was designed to test differences in perception between both map variants. During the experiment, designed with the MUTEP application, two randomly chosen groups of users were asked to perform several tasks with a map related to object localization or wayfinding. In the final part of the study, respondents were asked to mark a number of locations on a blank map. All information regarding the responses was entered into a database. In the second phase, the same test was conducted using an eye-tracking tool to observe the elementary cognitive strategies of the respondents. Differences in problem-solving strategies were found with respect to both tested visualizations.