WEB-DESIGN EVALUATION OF THE CRISIS MAP OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC USING EYE-TRACKING

References: 13th SGEM GeoConference on Informatics, Geoinformatics And Remote Sensing, www.sgem.org, SGEM2013 Conference Proceedings, ISBN 978-954-91818-9-0 / ISSN 1314-2704, June 16-22, 2013, Vol. 1, 1065 - 1072 pp

ABSTRACT

Crisis Mapping is a proper part of Crisis Informatics and Collaboration. This has come about mainly as a response to the major disasters of the last decade. Crisis Mapping has become a strong and effective tool for humanitarian workers especially after the Haiti earthquake of 2010. During the major floods in 2010 Czech Television used for the very first time social networks to involve thousands of citizens as sensors of the current state of affairs. Since that experience Czech Television started experimenting with creating its own crisis map. These experiments resulted in The Crisis Map of the Czech Republic.
Since The Crisis Map is solely web-based and social media oriented, the crucial point was to design, programe and set-up the website itself. For this purpose, cognitive methods of user issues evaluation were used - namely eye-tracking technology.
Eye-tracking technology is based on the principles of tracking movements of human eye while perceiving the visual scene. Recoding eye movements does not rely on self-reporting, therefore it can be considered as an objective method and can enhance traditional methods of evaluating user interfaces. Eye movement analysis provides valuable quantitative and qualitative information on visual search strategies of users.
The main goal of the paper is to evaluate The Crisis Map website design to achieve maximal efficiency of manipulating and reporting user needs during crisis events. In total, 8 volunteers were asked to participate in the eye-tracking experiment. Based on the results of this study the website administrators were able to improve overall interface of The Crisis Map, which is now ready to use.

Keywords: Collaborative Mapping, Eye-tracking, Eye Movement Patterns, User Interface, Cartography