Usability Evaluations of an Interactive, Internet Enabled Human Centered SanaViz Geovisualization Application

Abstract

The objective of our study was to evaluate usefulness and effectiveness of Human Centered GeoVis prototype The SanaViz against a conventional GeoVis application Instant Atlas. The SanaViz is an interactive, internet based application aimed at facilitating visual exploration of public health data, and in this context telehealth data from Brazil. A cross sectional, within-subject, mixed methods study design was utilized. A convenient sample of 20 study participants from diverse backgrounds was enrolled. The users were asked to perform 5 tasks using both the GeoVis applications. Univariate analyses were performed for continuous and categorical variables. Repeated measures of analysis of variance was performed on the within-subject design to test for significant differences between the SanaViz and Instant Atlas. All analysis was performed using SAS v9.1. Results showed that The SanaViz required less time, less assistance and fewer attempts and was reported as easier than Instant Atlas. © 2014 Springer International Publishing