The usability of selected base maps for crises management—users' perspectives

Abstract

Cartography has become an important tool for supporting decision-making processes in the field of crisis management. Maps (or GIS) can be used for solving various problems, e.g. the localization of accident site, the delimitation of endangered areas, the formulation of evacuation plans and others. People involved in decision-making processes use various procedures to solve these problems. However, a suitable and efficient form of cartographic support for particular situations and crisis management cycle stages is still missing. The main goal of the experiment was twofold. First, we wanted to assess the interdisciplinary (cartography–psychology) web-based testing environment and achieve the first usability results. Second, the use of different cartographic base map representations was analysed in order to judge the efficiency for specific situations. Testing was focused on various types of tasks, e.g. simple sign selection, the possibility of memorizing important information from the map and the choice of the optimal evacuation route. The overall testing was performed within the interactive web environment, based on predefined templates, automatically recorded and calibrated against the evaluation of the pretest users’ abilities. Preliminary testing results provide valuable inputs concerning the usability of selected base maps for supporting decision-making processes during various crisis situations.