Developing a usability framework for comparing web mapping interfaces

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22 Feb 2006 14:00 - 22 Feb 2006 14:20
Unit: Wageningen UR

 By: Lei Cui:

 Abstract:

Usability has become an important issue for interface design. However, there are few specific studies on measuring the usability of Web mapping interfaces. This thesis report describes our attempt to develop a framework to measure the usability of web mapping interfaces and to employ the framework to compare different web mapping interfaces from both their content and interactions to gain insights into the usability of them. A framework of five components (users, tasks, web mapping interface, usability measures, and usability elements) was developed. To implement the usability framework, a questionnaire was conducted first to gather information such as target group user profile, representative tasks. Afterwards, a usability test, based on the information obtained from the questionnaire was designed and conducted on 8 users. The usability elements selected, which are familiarity, efficiency, effectiveness, error rates, operability, and satisfaction, were measured for the interfaces from the usability framework. Some usability insights drawn on the usability of interaction styles of the web mapping interfaces were: ``click icon is of the best usability for zooming'' and ``drag map is of the best usability for panning''.
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