GIS are still hard to use! The interface design of a desktop GIS ensures they are NOT easy to learn....

Desktop Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are not user friendly they require time and effort to learn and remember. They are not intuitive and for new learners the first time they are faced with a GIS can be overwhelming experience, where do you start? These difficulties are nicely summarised in the user interviews I have been conducting.

One of our specialist users described their first and so far only encounter with a GIS. They were looking to just explore what the software could do – without being able to dedicate any real time to learning it. They successfully downloaded some geographically referenced data from Digimap (it was actually MasterMap). They then started the GIS programme and spent 5 to 10 minutes trying to open the data that had just obtained, in that time they did not succeed to open the data so they gave up and made their map in Photoshop. They found GIS too difficult to use. From a usability perspective this represents an issue in learnability. The design of the desktop GIS meant that the new learner failed in the first hurdle- adding existing geographical data to a map.

The notion that desktop GIS are hard to use is not new. More than 15 years ago in 1995 Traynor and Williams discussed the issues of usability in GIS presenting a paper with the title, "Why Are Geographical Information Systems hard to use?" at the annual ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Today, desktop GIS are still just as difficult to use!! The interface design really does not make them easy to learn. Will this change as the development of VGI web-mapping interfaces progresses since they rely on contributions by the general public?

... A quick question on geographic concepts?

Important Geographic and Cartographic Concepts for Beginners to GIS?

I have identified a list of broad geographic and cartographic concepts that are being considered for inclusion into our tool that has begun development. On analysing the interviews with the expert users, in combination with my experience of introducing GIS topics to new users the following concepts are being prioritised.

• Beginning mapping – the importance of location and scale
• Geographic data modelling – how representations of reality are created with different GIS data models
• Cartographic theory – fundamental principles of cartography that aid useful and usable maps to be produced
• Data generalisation - introduction of types of data generalisation and why it is necessary
• Data classification
• Mapping conventions – elements that enhance user understanding of the map
• Simple spatial analysis – introducing some simple of analysis that can be computed using GIS eg buffers and distance

If you have an opinion you can send us your thoughts via this quick questionnaire

G3 a Few Months In

We’re now a few months in to the G3 project, and here’s the story so far:

- We’ve conducted and documented a number of in-depth interviews with members in our target groups of urban design, urban anthropology, history and environmental management.

- The interviews have been analysed, common themes and tasks identified, scenarios developed and then ‘translated’ into the language of GIS so that they can be implemented as teaching tools. We’re now looking at identifying data for each scenario.

- We’ve designed the end-to-end architecture of our scenario creation tool – this wasn’t as easy as a simple web site design, given that we want to build something extensible – i.e. that can grow as more scenarios are identified.

- We’ve set up our webserver, migrated a massive amount of existing reference code across, and started looking at the design of our scenarios from the end user perspective. We plan to use a step-by-step approach to allow our students to move through the learning process at their own page. The tool will validate that they understand the concepts as they go through.

- We’ve talked to a number of people involved in GIS teaching to identify how they approach introducing people from other disciplines to GIS.

So, we’d like to take the opportunity to say thanks to all the people who have participated in the project so far! We’ve promised most of you anonymity, but watch this space to see how your input has shaped the work.

If GIS were a Language......?

As part of the annual GISRUK conference this year (which was held at Portsmouth, I organised an unprogramme session in the spirit of Where Camp. This is something new to the attendees of GISRUK but nevertheless it gave the project team the chance to introduce the project and debate some of the issues we have been engaging with as a team. One of the discussions centred on the idea that if GIS were a language – what would be the equivalent of saying, “hello, my name is Kate”.This is interesting because in one of my project interviews a participant discussed the langauage of GIS too.

The analysis of the interviews a have enabled me to build a list of geographic concepts that our scenarios will support but we are interested to know what your thoughts maybe...... Which geographic concept do you think is the starting point to learning a new language of GIS? In the not too distant future we will be posting a questionnaire to collate your opinions.

Importance of knowing location

The user interviews are revealing many insights that as a GIS expert I take for granted. One of the interviewees revealed that just being able to maps of things they are interested in is a big thing for their field. We should not take for granted the simplicity and importance that just knowing about location means we can create a map.

So one of the first geographic concepts that we need to consider is that almost everything happens somewhere, and by knowing this where, we can build a map.

GIS not SPSS!

My undergraduate dissertation students seem to run in the opposite direction if I suggest they use a GIS to explore their data. Why is this?

On discussion, it seems they consider GIS to equal numbers and statistics which they are afraid of. This is also a theme identified in the analysis of the user interviews I have been conducting. My interviewees, in the main, are not quantitative researchers with a little knowledge of GIS but think it could be potentially useful for their subject area. They are much more comfortable with using data that are non numerical in nature. This has got me thinking...

• Do you have to a high degree of statistical literacy to “do GIS” ?
  
  
• Does the idea that to "do GIS" you need to be good at mathematics act as a barrier to entry?
  
  
• Is the idea true, to "do GIS" do you need to be good at mathematics?

Urban Design User Expert Interview Summary

This word cloud summarises one of the interviews I conducted with user experts as part of the JISCG3 project. It highlights words repeatedly spoken during the interview and is a useful way of indicating several themes we discussed:

· The scale used in urban design projects from context to site to building

· The importance of software such as AutoCad and Photoshop

· The use of maps

· The use of GIS

The word cloud provides a recap of the interview prior to moving on to more conventional qualitative analysis, which begins with the identification of themes used to encode all the interviews transcripts. I particularly like the placement of the 3 words GIS, think and maps!

As part of the project we are interviewing experts from urban design, environmental management and anthropology in order to develop useful use case scenarios particular to new GIS learners from different disciplines.