User-centered Design and Evaluation of a Geovisualization Application Leveraging Aggregated QS Data

Abstract

Individual movement traces recorded by users of activity tracking applications such as Strava provide opportunities that extend beyond delivering personal value or insight to the individual who engages in these “quantified-self” (QS) activities. The large volumes of data generated by these individuals, when aggregated and anonymized, can be used by city planners, Departments of Transportation, advocacy groups, and researchers to help make cities safer and more efficient. This opportunity, however, is constrained by the technical skills and resources available to those tasked with assessing bicycling behavior in urban centers. This paper aims to address the question of how to design cartographic interfaces to serve as mediated platforms for making large amounts of individual bicycling data more accessible, usable, and actionable. Principles of cartographic representation, geovisual analytics techniques, and best practices in user interface/experience design are employed to arrive at an effective visualization tool for a broad urban planning audience. We use scenario-based design methods to encapsulate knowledge of map use practice gleaned from the development process, and conduct a post-implementation two-part user study with seven domain experts to further assess the usability and utility of the interactive mapping tool.