Visual Hierarchy Design of Map Site Information in Thematic Meteorological Interface

Abstract

The visual map elements of the thematic meteorological interface have an essential impact on the user’s processing efficiency. Based on the different visual hierarchies of map site information, including shape, colour, and area, this paper explored the influence of site information’s visual hierarchy change mechanism on user behaviour performance. The results were as follows: 1) The greater the number of shapes, the more difficult it was to complete the task. Therefore, the shape of map sites could be formulated according to the type of meteorological disaster. 2) Under the same comparison level, when the number of colours for multiple map sites was 6, the user’s task operation efficiency was best. 3) The area of map sites was reasonably enlarged within a specific range that could improve the operation efficiency of interface tasks and balance the information complexity of map sites. The results have certain reference value for the visual hierarchy design of map sites in the meteorological interface.