Spatial Cognition & Human Factors
Related Projects:
Large volumes of geospatial data are
being generated but not used effectively, because too little
attention has been placed on making geoinformation technologies
useful and usable for non-geotechnology experts. Enabling human
interaction with geospatial information represents a fundamental
challenge. An important focus for Center research toward meeting
this challenge will be to assess existing and develop new geovisualization
methods and tools from a human-centered perspective that puts
the emphasis on user needs. A goal is to move beyond "traditional"
approaches to human-computer interaction to focus not on how
humans interact with machines, but on human access to and use
of information. Recent and ongoing research by Center faculty
and students addresses a range of cognitive and usability issues
associated with geovisualization. These include fundamental
questions related to:
- understanding and use of visual representations and interfaces
to those representations,
- dynamic representations as prompts for human understanding
and knowledge construction,
- analysis of tasks that visual data exploration software
needs to support,
- analysis of tasks that visual data exploration software
needs to support,
- understanding the differences between individual and group
use of visualization tools
- multimodal interfaces to geospatial displays
We build on Center expertise in cognitive science and usability
engineering to expand our focus to a wider range of use and
usability issues related to geospatial information technology
in a wider range of context and by a wider range of users.
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