IIGLU - how usable will it be?

By now if you have been following the blog you will know that the team are interested in the usability of geospatial technology and that we are developing an e-learning environment for teaching and supporting the learning of geospatial concepts. Hence, the blog post an IIGLU is born. IIGLU is the name of our tool and stands for Interactive, Integrated, Geospatial, Learning and Understanding. We like the name IIGLU because in its other sense an igloo is a construction that uses building blocks to slowly build up and develop - rather like the teaching geospatial concepts where complex ideas are broken down into smaller parts. IIGLU has two components one where teachers can record their tutorials and one where the students access the tutorials and play them back.

In a previous blog post I discussed the Child of 10 usability standard. The idea behind which is that a child of 10 can do something in 10 minutes. We have considered this standard throughout the development of the IIGLU application. What you see in the sneeky preview is prior to the CSS and the interface design scripting. Patrick, our developer is working on this as we speak.

For students using IIGLU it will be straightforward and intuitive to use without requiring any help documentation or instructions. Students should be able to log in, select a scenario or geographic concept and then work their way through the tutorial steps using a simple next or back button. Simplicity is the underlying premise. We have placed priority on the user friendly development of this component.

We have also given priority to the geospatial concepts and knowledge building process and not to the complex interactions with the map. Therefore, 3 types of multimedia are currently supported: HTML, Map, and You Tube Video. So there is this great video from the TV series West Wing all about the distortions that result from map projections: it is the perfect way to introduce new learners to map projections (see previous post on reflections of teaching map projections). The e-learning environment will enable complex geospatial concepts to be presented without the frustrating interactions required with learning with a desktop GIS.

An IIGLU is born, or a project development and brand update

This is the first one of the overdue development activity updates from the JISCG3 project. I have been busy over this summer with the development of the web interface, which we now christened IIGLU. The idea of IIGLU comes from “Interactive Integrated Geospatial Learning and Understanding” (to be honest, the second I only comes so we could grab the most popular domains!). This name is a take on the word Igloo, which is made of large building blocks representing the different steps of geographical understanding in our tutorial. Conveniently, an igloo is also sort of shaped like a globe/earth, returning the focus to gegography!

With the name set then, we are now ready to release a first demo of the tool, which I quickly put together this afternoon and recorded in this screencast:

As you can see from the video, we now have a functionally complete web-environment, where registered users can create new interactive tutorials, and classify them in different overarching scenarios. Each tutorial consists of a series of 'states', using different mediums such as rich text, videos, and most importantly an interactive web-mapping environment. The idea with the states is that we can provide in each tutorial a set of anchor points to which a learner can return if they get lost, all the while preserving a rich interactive user experience, especially when it comes to the web-mapping. Further development of functionality will focus on the inclusion of more spatial functionalities, as well as thematic formatting, to make this a much more rich environment encompassing a wide range of geographic concepts.

There are still plenty of rough edges to trim, and we need to put a nice face on the functional interface. We have just completed the design of a website logo, and will attack the styling of the User Interface this week. So hopefully, in a couple weeks time, I will be able to give a much more polished presentation of the system!

Technical Development details (warning, geoweb-geekiness ahead!!):

The technical design of the tool consists of two major components:

• Server-side framework (we used GeoDjango, a spatially aware web development framework as the basis). The server manages the user and tutorial creation, editing and management, and serves all the tutorial data and connected spatial datasets for use by the client in a standards compliant manner (GeoJSON), with all the data residing on a PostgreSQL + PostGIS database.
• Client framework (developed in JavaScript/JQuery) enables a rich user interaction experience, with a dynamic and fast guidance of the user through the tutorials, and efficient tracking of the user state and progress through the tutorial.

You might notice that we use OpenLayers as our mapping library, which slightly contravenes the previous conclusions we arrived at in this project regarding appropriate web-map API's. These conclusions reached previously about ease of development and deduplication of effort, achieved by reusing legacy codebase from different projects, were rendered irrelevant after switching to a structured web development framework, ie (Geo)-Django, and enabled us to use OpenLayers instead to take advantage of greater capabilities and openess of this library.

What is today’s equivalent to Jon Snow’s Map?

The question that was raised by James Reid from JISC during the workshop I was leading at the open geo health event. I would be interested to hear what the readers of this blog think? The workshop was discussing “why GIS is under-utilised in the NHS?” The term GIS in this sense is probably better replaced by location or spatially enabled technology as it encompasses the extent and breadth of contemporary desktop/web/mobile technology.

The question, “What is today’s equivalent to Jon Snow’s Map?” has resonated with me and got me thinking. To consider the answer to this question – we must first understand why the map of cholera deaths is so important: Here are my initial thoughts:

1. Example of an early GIS – on paper with different layers (pumps, deaths, location of water companies and places of interest such as brewery/ poor house/ plague burial plot).
   
   
2. Represented a paradigm shift in thinking related to cholera transmission – by providing an evidence base for the theory that Cholera is transmitted by water and is not air-borne.

Is there a modern health mapping equivalent? In the world of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and humanitarian aid for which health is a component, I would propose that the crowd-sourced mapping of Hati has had considerable impact with a group of volunteers creating geographic data by tracing up-to-date satellite imagery and using the resulting data to develop applications for use by crisis responders.

In the field of Health, there are two other applications that come of the fore: Health Maps and EpiCollect. Health Maps began in 2006 and aggregates content from resources such as the World Health Organisation to provide real-time information on emerging infectious disease outbreaks. The recently developed EpiCollect is a mobile application tool that facilitates the collection of user content via questionnaires or surveys. Both of these initiatives are useful but whether they are the modern day equivalent of John Snow – I am not sure.

Open, Geo, Health Workshop: GIS in the NHS

I am leading a workshop at the Open, Geo Health Workshop in Edinburgh - #gecohealth. This is a JISC organised event.

I am hoping to encourage a discussion related to the future role of GIS in the health (NHS). As a researcher not only in usability I have a special interest in Health and Health inequalities.

It has long been my belief that GIS is under-utilised in the NHS. So whilst there are lots of new opportunities for Geo and Health - we need to identify what really needs to change to embed practice within the NHS. Whilst now more than ever before GIS is more affordable and more accessible with lots of useful data that can be applied to the health care setting - many barriers (social, political, technical, economical) still exist. The technical merits and low cost of Open Source Software are not enough to drive a georevolution within the NHS.

I see a number of the geospatial projects JISC have recently funded as having a future potential to aid decision-making in health. One of which is our project. Once the G3 project software is launched in October, I will develop a scenario around Geographic Concepts and health inequalities and hope that it will prove useful to health care professionals.

Prioritising Geographic Concepts for Teaching New Learners GIS: results from our blog poll

We asked readers of the blog to identify the priority of teaching certain Geographic Concepts to new users whilst quite a few people viewed the questions only 21 readers completed the poll. Firstly, I would like to thank the blog readers who completed our quick survey. The table below summarises the concepts that we used in the poll. A graph at the bottom of the blog post shows the results.

Geographic Concept	Details	Example
Beginning mapping	importance of location	zoom, pan, layers
Geographic data modelling	raster versus vector	Points, Lines, Polygons and Pixels....
Cartographic theory	fundamental principles of cartography	simplicity, harmony, no map junk ...
Data generalisation	introduction of types of and need for generalisation	Simplification, Selection, Omission, Displacement, Aggregation...
Data classification	introduction to data classification rules and type of classification	Natural Breaks, Quintiles, Geometric Progressions ...
Mapping conventions	elements that enhance user understanding of the map	scale bar, legend, north arrow, symbology....
Simple spatial analysis	introducing simple analysis computed using GIS	buffer, distance, overlay....
Uncertainty in geographic data	Impact of uncertainty on data	Modifiable Areal Unit Problem, ecological fallacy

With such a small N we do not have a any statistically valid results but what we do have is some useful thoughts that support the thinking of the project team and the development of the scenarios and resulting site development.

We asked readers to prioritise the concepts based on a linear scale of 1 to 5, where a score of 1 represented a concept that was not relevant to new learners and a score of 5 signified a must teach concept for new users. Using these values, I have calculated a quick and dirty Score of Importance for each of the priorities, see the graph at the bottom. This score alongside the free text comments helps us to identify quickly what our readers think are the most important concepts to teach new learners of GIS.

Results :

• All of the concepts are relevant for new users of GIS to learn – but the timing of when they are introduced is what is most important
• The most important concept is associated with beginning mapping and why spatial is special
• New users need to be aware of the issues that result because GI models are simply an abstraction of reality and they need to be familiar with how reality is represented using data models.
• Principles and practical cartography were rated (slightly) more important to teach before introducing simple spatial analysis and uncertainty
• The details of datums and map projections are beyond the scope but it is important for users to recognise the internal bias that may result from a map projection

Metaphor for Introducing & Teaching Map Projections: The world as a Piece of (Digital) Graph Paper

The ins and outs of projection systems can be complicated to introduce to new learners of GIS – and how much do you really need to know to create your first map? Over a coffee in the sunshine (it was hard work teaching summer school in Malta) Claire and I were discussing the question: How do we introduce map projections to new learners?

It turns out we both start with a demonstration. Claire uses her fist to represent the globe and her other hand to represent the piece of paper that is then wrapped around the globe (somewhat like the rock, paper scissors game). I on the other hand use a Clementine and a piece of paper – the paper crumples resulting from wrapping the paper around the Clementine represent the distortions that occur during the projection process. We both then go on to talk about grids etc...

Both of these illustrate the problem of modelling a complex reality in 2D. So if new learners imagined that a giant piece of graph paper is wrapped around the globe and that each place on earth is then marked on the graph paper it is possible to visualise the fundamentals of digital mapping.

The map window in a GIS is in essence a sheet of digital graph paper. One possibility is to harness this metaphor in our tutorials. Projection systems can be introduced simply within our scenarios, perhaps by activating and showing the grid (ie the sheet of graph paper) and asking the user to observe the coordinates changing as the mouse is moved horizontally and vertically.

It is important to understand the basics if you are using data that is not GIS ready. For example, one of the practical’s I have designed for the International GIS summer school at the University of Malta that I teach on uses a data set of road traffic accidents in England (from the UK open data initiative). The text file contains the X,Y location of each accident as an attribute field. In order to create point data of each accident the students need to know:

• 1) Why there is such a thing as a coordinate system?
• 2) How to identify fields containing coordinate data in the data set?
• 3) What coordinate system the fields represent?
• 4) How you can view the coordinates change as you move the mouse over your map

Child of Ten Standard of User Interface Design

A useful benchmark in user interface design is the Child of Ten standard. This means that a child of ten should be able to learn to do something useful with the system within 10 minutes. This indicates that a system is “easy to use”. In 1998 Al Gore discussed this in the context of GIS and digital globes as cited by Goodchild his paper “the Use Case of Digital Earth” in 2008.

I do not know if this has actually been validated for digital globes such as NASA World Wind or GoogleEarth but from personal experience I am absolutely certain they are easier to use, easier to learn and easier to remember the functionality than proprietary desktop GIS.

In this project we aim to develop a useful and usable GeoWeb application for non experts and so this benchmark could be incorporated into the testing and development phase – can non-experts learn to do something in our application within 10 minutes? Something to consider.....

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.