Verifying the Usability of the European Water Framework Directive (Geo-visualizations and their usability by the Dutch water boards)

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20 Feb 2008 09:30 - 20 Feb 2008 10:00
Unit: Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing
Location: GAIA 2
Organisation: Wageningen University

 By Nanette Valster   

Abstract:

The Dutch water boards are using GIS based tools to implement the European Water Framework Directive. There are three tools developed in The Netherlands to implement the WFD, the WFD Portal, Water Improvement Measures (WIM), and the WFD Explorer. Only the WFD Explorer can be used to implement the chemical as well as the ecological goals of the directive, and calculates the water quality in current and future situations. Nowadays 75% of the Dutch water boards are using the WFD Explorer, and the tool is still in development, these are the main reasons to adopt this tool in this research. The objective of this research is to verify the usability of the visualization of the WFD Explorer to implement the WFD used by water boards. Unfortunately there are no scientific publications found about these tools, from this we concluded that no scientific research about the usability of a GIS based tool to implement the WFD has been done.  
In published literature the usability criteria which are used in scientific research are selected. Many usability criteria correspond with each other, like the criteria learnability, satisfaction, and efficiency, they appear several times in literature from different researchers. The criteria of ISO 9241-11 are adopted in this research: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. These criteria judge the usability of the WFD Explorer, by taking the geo-visualization of the tool into account. For this task the usability criteria are combined with the visualization principles of Sheppard (accuracy, representativeness, visual clarity, interest, legitimacy, and access). Effectiveness is linked to representativeness, efficiency is linked to legitimacy and visual clarity, and satisfaction is linked to interest. The remaining visualization principles are expired from this research.
In this research is performed an evaluation based on the inspection method cognitive walkthrough, and the questionnaire test method is used to analyze the usability criteria. The interface is judged by a walk through common tasks a user would perform and evaluating the interface’s ability to support each step. Through this evaluation a pre-usability test is done before the usability is tested by proposing the questionnaire to the users of the WFD Explorer. Subsequently the questionnaire is distributed among the users. By using the questionnaire method no special equipment and expertise are required and this method does not take much time. The test stays also close to the users and their requirements of the tool which is an important condition in a usability assessment.
Results of the cognitive walkthrough are: the WFD Explorer contains many interactive tools, however the visualization is static although it better can be dynamic for data exploratory analysis. Level of detail and object intelligence are limited present in the explorer. A result from the questionnaire is: advanced users give several times the same answers, they agree of all user groups the most with each other. But in general the answers of the users gave no striking results. The visualization itself is not much in use or preferred to use in reporting the water quality. The WFD Explorer is not (yet) in use in water quality projects, because of the limited time it is adopted at the water boards. The general conclusion of this research is that the usability of the WFD Explorer is moderate. The criterion satisfaction describes the Explorer the most, the effectiveness and the efficiency of the WFD Explorer can be improved.
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