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What path and how fast? The effect of flight time and path on user spatial understanding in map tour animations

What path and how fast? The effect of flight time and path on user spatial understanding in map tour animations
What path and how fast? The effect of flight time and path on user spatial understanding in map tour animations

GIScience scholars have identified map tours as an important visualization type for communicating spatial information: map tours are animations where the virtual camera moves through space and are common on the web, mobile devices, and television. Understanding how to enhance their effectiveness is timely because of recent, growing interest in virtual reality and animated map presentation tools such as Esri Story Maps™ and Google Earth™ tours. Despite this popularity, little empirical evidence exists about how people learn from map tours and how they should best be designed to improve effectiveness. This research is aimed at answering that need. An empirical study is described, which was designed to understand how virtual camera speed, path, and dynamic tilting within a map tour influence subjects’ ability to develop survey knowledge. The results of the experiment show that paths encompassing overviews of the landscape improve the viewer’s ability to build up survey knowledge; that tilting appears to have a much weaker effect; and that combining fast speed and a difficult path within a map tour increases the viewer’s cognitive load.

empirical study, Esri Story Maps™, Google Earth™ tour, survey knowledge, zoom and pan
1523-0406
128-139
Treves, Richard
e1028520-58a1-43db-979c-8b72cbf0b8d2
Skarlatidou, Artemis
f1b6c31f-b0c6-46ed-b9a7-d1ac7c21a0f3
Treves, Richard
e1028520-58a1-43db-979c-8b72cbf0b8d2
Skarlatidou, Artemis
f1b6c31f-b0c6-46ed-b9a7-d1ac7c21a0f3

Treves, Richard and Skarlatidou, Artemis (2018) What path and how fast? The effect of flight time and path on user spatial understanding in map tour animations. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 45 (2), 128-139. (doi:10.1080/15230406.2016.1275812).

Record type: Article

Abstract

GIScience scholars have identified map tours as an important visualization type for communicating spatial information: map tours are animations where the virtual camera moves through space and are common on the web, mobile devices, and television. Understanding how to enhance their effectiveness is timely because of recent, growing interest in virtual reality and animated map presentation tools such as Esri Story Maps™ and Google Earth™ tours. Despite this popularity, little empirical evidence exists about how people learn from map tours and how they should best be designed to improve effectiveness. This research is aimed at answering that need. An empirical study is described, which was designed to understand how virtual camera speed, path, and dynamic tilting within a map tour influence subjects’ ability to develop survey knowledge. The results of the experiment show that paths encompassing overviews of the landscape improve the viewer’s ability to build up survey knowledge; that tilting appears to have a much weaker effect; and that combining fast speed and a difficult path within a map tour increases the viewer’s cognitive load.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 19 December 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 February 2017
Published date: 4 March 2018
Keywords: empirical study, Esri Story Maps™, Google Earth™ tour, survey knowledge, zoom and pan

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 417462
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/417462
ISSN: 1523-0406
PURE UUID: 3a06c71d-a09b-43c8-8b71-c427d958ffe5

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Date deposited: 31 Jan 2018 17:30
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 18:09

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Contributors

Author: Richard Treves
Author: Artemis Skarlatidou

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