Research Conclusion

Through this thesis a series of assessments under applied workflow is established in order to accomplish goal: improving geovisualization capabilities of Sen2Cube.at web application. The goal of this thesis then divided into two main works: to determining the visualization capabilities and developing UI prototype regarding the new features.

User evaluation examination, SWOT analysis together with formal/informal discussion with Sen2Cube.at were carried out as initial assessment of the system. The purpose of questionnaire is to gain information about need of users particularly in potential visualization improvement. Result from questionnaire indicates the demand of improving visualization capabilities of Sen2Cube.at web application, as they mostly modify the image map visualization through RS/GIS software. In-depth interview is performed with three core users as the latest part of user evaluation stage. The purpose is to discovering specific problems of UI and usability of Sen2Cube.at specifically in visualization of image map product by completing two tasks and a post discussion.They alerted several concerns of the misleading and mismatch color ramp. Additionally, they also mentioned the preference of having discrete data type in symbology. The last session of in-depth interview aimed to examine several web mapping applications as visualization modification tool references. Three of them agree that colorbrewer2.org as the best option for accommodate their need. SWOT analysis is created as the summarize of previous evaluation from both parties: internal Sen2Cube.at team and active users.

The second work is implementing visualization tool feedback from user evaluation as UI prototype. UI design requires solid concept of wireframe to be determined before, therefore in this thesis two type of wireframes were developed. As a note, creating wireframe must follow certain taks-flow, hereby selected task-flow was selected from user evaluation result. Lo-fi wireframe is employed as fundamental concept of how the wireframe will work step by step. Afterward, digital wireframe is created as Hi-fi type together with Hi-fi UI prototype in Figma web application.

Prototype for two interaction tools are symbology widget and cartographic element widget. Symbology widget contains tools that allows user to modify the layer symbology based on their preferences, this is include layer selection, data transform, and color ramp button.The library of color schemes refers to ColorBrewer2.0 master color scheme that generated in d3js library. In general, there are two type of color schemes: multi-hue and single hue.The second tool is cartographic element widget which provides add/remove map elements capability, they are: legend, scale, and basemap. Additionally, users also mentioned that text editor is also can be an option for them to add short text into their text such as title and brief explanation about the symbology value representing of. Created prototype beforehand enables to make the UI design less time and effort consuming particularly if the proposed features demand complex coding algorithm.

Nevertheless, this thesis does not free from criticism points. The number of participants is considered lack of proof for user evaluation quantitative assessment. The solution of this issue is conducting in-depth interview with core users. Despite the interactive and clickable capability of Hi-fi prototype, UI design platform requires designing for each wireframe layers and it’s also demand tedious wire connection from one layer to another. In addition, designing interaction tool also requires intuitive aspect that naturally guide users completing the task smoothly. The future work might continue to next stage such as interaction & usability studies, implementation and debugging. Beside above results, this study also a proof that modern cartography methods are still relevant to be applied to web map application by incorporating with UI/UX study, therefore user experience could be levitated.