Supporting synthesis in geovisualization.
Geovisualization tools are intended to support analysts in complex task domains like crisis management, disease surveillance, and threat analysis. It is likely that analysts in these domains will use geovisualizations to develop many analytical results over time. This calls for attention to the problem of collecting, organizing, and making sense out of groups of analytical results - a stage of analysis called synthesis. The research reported here aims to characterize the process of synthesis as it is conducted by analysts working alone, and to suggest design guidelines for new tools to support synthesis in that setting. We have developed a new experimental method for observing and characterizing the process of synthesis. This approach has participants work with a collection of physical data artifacts on a paper-covered workspace to devise hypotheses under the guise of a disease outbreak scenario. From video recordings we identified and coded actions that participants undertook to complete the synthesis task. In this article we report results from synthesis experiments with analysts from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and experts from The Pennsylvania State University. Experiment results are then distilled into a design framework that can be used to shape the development of geovisual synthesis tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]/nCopyright of International Journal of Geographical Information Science is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
From video recordings we identified and coded actions that participants undertook to complete the synthesis task
workshop
Eighteen participants were recruited for this study, including eight disease surveillance and biological/chemical threat analysts from PNNL, five GIScience experts from the Penn State GeoVISTA Center, and five infectious disease experts from the Penn State Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD).Participants are asked to devise hypotheses from the collection of artifacts, and to arrange and modify artifacts and the workspace using standard office tools such as pens, post-it notes, and markersThis article reports synthesis results from sessions with analysts at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and experts at The Pennsylvania State University (PSU)Our experiment featured an hour-long synthesis activity in which participants work in isolation to organize and annotate a set of physical artifactsParticipants were provided markers, pens, adhesive tags, and post-it notes of multiple sizes and colors to modify the workspace and artifacts as desired.
Participants were instructed that an avian influenza outbreak had occurred in the Pacific Northwest and that their task was to develop hypotheses for the source of the outbreak using the artifacts and tools they had been provided with. During the , participants were asked to provide a talk-aloud (Ericsson and Simon 1993) verbal protocol to state what they were doing. Averbal protocol provides context for participant actions during the experiment to aid post-experiment coding analysis.
Supporting synthesis will require flexible tools that allow for diverse approaches and creativity.
Multiple GuidelinesDesign guidelines for synthesis support toolsSynthesis strategiesOur research provides an initial examination of part of the geovisualization research process that has until now had little attention. The results of our experiments show that synthesis conducted in the individual realm is an intricate and varied activity.
we have developed an experimental approach for observing and characterizing the process of synthesis of geovisualization data.
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