Evaluation of map use on Multi-touch screen devices
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Alencar de Mendonça, A.L.; 2Stamato Delazari, L.
1UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DO AMAZONAS Email: andremalms@hotmail.com
2UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARANÁ Email: luciene@ufpr.br
Abstract
Multi-touch screen devices such as tablets and smartphones have been becoming the mobile market main products and map software is a central part of this popularization, since interactive maps are standard apps for mobile devices industry. In Cartography there is special interest in knowing more about maps and its related interaction processes, in the context of people manipulating an interface in order to locate something in the surrounding space. This paper is part of a study which effort is to evaluate how users interact with these devices and investigate what are the aspects that could have positive or negative influence in effectiveness of ordinary tasks. One aspect of interest of this kind of device use is that it can occur at indoor or outdoor environments. For this work, a sample of 30 users has executed three different activities, simulating real needs associated to this kind of device in everyday use. This sample was evaluated by means of HCI techniques, including screen and interaction recording, questionnaires, and think aloud protocol, all together with criteria to qualify interaction, effectiveness and efficiency, and workload after tasks' accomplishment. The process for decision-making in proposed tasks was then summarized and analyzed, and the ways of interaction and related issues were characterized. In this analysis, specific criteria for each task was identified and measured, in order to list every possible variation during map use in selected devices. Measures were carried out, from the position of handling devices to number of times the user interacted with a tool that he or she expected to be present in the interface. Results provided a foundation for proposal on mitigation techniques, potentially beneficial to map design, specifically applied to touchscreen devices. One example is finger-friendly mapping, when the size of finger-area can define scale and available query selection (click-able) area on map features.
Keywords
Interactive maps; Map use and user issues; Interface evaluation