THE USE OF USABILITY HEURISTICS TO EVALUATE VGI SYSTEMS INTERFACES
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Picanco Jr, P.; 2Delazari, L.
1FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF PARANA - UFPR Email: pericles.picanco@outlook.com
2FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF PARANA - UFPR Email: luciene@ufpr.br
Abstract
This research aims to identify the main usability aspects of Volunteer Geographic Information (VGI) interfaces that could interfere the interaction between the user and the system, as well as the system adoption and the geographic data update. Considering that, the main goal of a VGI system is getting volunteered geographical data, this research focus specifically in the geographic features insertion, from the system access until the success or failure of the task execution. VGI systems, such as OpenStreetMap can have different technological approaches, types of interfaces, functionality implementation, forms, and different processes of interaction with the user. Thereafter, the execution of the same task can be processed and performed in different ways depending on the system. These differences can lead to several user’s experiences, affecting the quality of the collected geographical information, the maintenance of the active users and the addition of new volunteers. In this research were used the 10 usability heuristics, defined by Nielsen (1993), such as visibility of system status, match between system and the real world and error prevention, These heuristics were a guide to evaluate the main aspects that could interfere with the interfaces. To achieve this, we have asked to users of different levels of familiarity with the VGI systems, Wikimapia, OpenStreetMap and Wikiloc, to perform a set of tasks with the objective of insert, edit and delete one or more features. The results were evaluated in order to verify the influence of the interface elements in the accomplishment of the task and the user’s system adoption. During the application of usability test, the users were recorded and the computer screen was captured to verify the user’s interaction dynamic, check the results of each task and to assist the final analysis. Through this test, we were able to identify why the interface of one of the tested VGI systems is more efficient than the other two and which aspects of usability must be observed more carefully in VGI systems interfaces development.
Keywords
VGI; Usability; Usability Heuristics