Evaluating the visual scanning efficiency of geovisualisation displays

One of the main tasks in designing geovisualisation displays is to find a balance between information density and potential need of information by users that allows for effective and efficient visual processing of the presented information. A plethora of technology-driven tools have favoured the presentation of huge spatio-temporal data on different kinds of displays. The underlying assumption for these complex geovisualisations is that users have sufficient cognitive skills for visually processing geographic information. We argue, however, that a diligent design of geovisualisations that reduces the information complexity by incorporating the principle of relevance and a cognitively adequate presentation of the information should improve the overall utility and usability of geovisualisations. For that reason, we recently proposed the design approach of attention-guiding geovisualisation (Reichenbacher and Swienty 2007) following recommendations of prominent research agendas (Chinchor et al. 2005, MacEachren and Kraak, 2001) that revealed a lack of cognition-based research for developing scientifically testable visual representations of geographic information.