Jitka Komarkova

Usability of GeoWeb sites: case study of Czech regional authorities web sites

Today, many of the solved problems are spatially oriented. It means that more and more people need to use spatial information. They need to be able to use it quickly, without any special software tool and without any special training. So they need an easy-to-use solution. GeoWeb sites can perfectly fit the demands but they must be properly designed. The article describes usability testing of GeoWeb sites of all Czech regional authorities and proposes some recommendations how user interface should be designed. Recommendations can be generalized because there are no significant differences between private and public sector. The main differences are between target groups of the users: regular or casual users.

Heuristic evaluation of usability of GeoWeb sites

Usability of software belongs today to the top priorities of both managers and users of information technologies because the dependency of the majority of mankind activities on information and communication technologies in general is increasing rapidly. This requirement concerns geographic information systems in general but it principally concerns GeoWeb sites because spatial data and tools for their utilization are nowadays in great demand by end-users. GeoWeb sites can provide them an easy-to-use solution but they must be properly designed. The article describes proposal of heuristic evaluation of usability of GeoWeb sites and a case study: the proposed heuristic evaluation is applied to GeoWeb sites of all Czech regional authorities. ISO/IEC 9126 quality model is used as a framework and heuristic evaluation in according to Nielsen is used as a method for usability inspection. In the end some recommendations how user interface should be designed are proposed.

Automated Geo-Spatial System for Generalized Assessment of Socio-Economic Vulnerability due to Landslide in a Region

Abstract The paper explains a system to assess automatically vulnerability due to landslide on socio-economy of a region by categorizing landslide hazard using spatial as well as temporal causative factors. The expert system has input, understanding, expert & output modules & uses digital spatial data of causative factors of landslide. Input accepts thematic images of contributing factors for landslides, Understanding module interprets to extract relevant information as required by expert module consisting of a Knowledge Base & Inference strategy categorizing region into different susceptibilities of landslide. Overlaid on socioeconomic parameters in output module for vulnerability maps of landslide on population, forestry, urban, rural, agriculture separately to ascertain the impact of landslide on socio-economy of the Tehri-Garhwal region lower Himalayas, India.

Usability evaluation of web-based GIS: case study

Dependency of the majority of mankind activities on information and communication technologies in general and on geographic information is increasing rapidly. This is one of the reasons why usability of specialized software tools (GIS) belongs today to the top priorities of managers and users of information technologies. This requirement concerns geographic information systems in general but it principally concerns Web-based GIS sites because spatial data and tools for their utilization are nowadays in great demand by end-users too. Web-based GIS sites can provide an easy-to-use solution to the end users but they must be properly designed. Case study evaluating usability of three different Czech Web-based GIS applications by means of questionnaire-based usability user evaluation was done. Results are discussed and some recommendations how user interface of Web-based GIS should be designed, are concluded.

Usability evaluation methods for spatial information visualisation: Case study: Evaluation of tourist maps

Many decisions are influenced by location. Geoinformation technologies together with digital data are today very often used to support spatially-oriented decisions. Another reliable way of spatial information presentation is represented by analogue maps. This contribution describes utilization of software engineering methods in cartography to evaluate and improve quality of maps. Authors have long experience with utilization of usability evaluation of Web based geographic information systems. They propose utilization of suitable methods to evaluate usability of analogue maps. Usability of analogue tourist maps of attractive areas of the Czech Republic was evaluated by means of proposed methods. Maps published by the most famous publishers in the Czech Republics, i. e. maps published by Kartografie Praha, a. s., SHOCart, spol. s r. o., Klub českých turistů o. s. and Geodézie On Line were evaluated. Usability User Testing and Heuristic Evaluation were used as methods for usability evaluation. The main results of case studies are briefly described in the paper. Results of one case study are processed by multi-criteria decision making methods. Benefits and weaknesses of used methods derived from author experience are stated in the end.

A Proposal of a Big Web Data Application and Archive for the Distributed Data Processing with Apache Hadoop

In recent years, research on big data, data storage and other topics that represent innovations in the analytics field has become very popular. This paper describes a proposal of a big web data application and archive for the distributed data processing with Apache Hadoop, including the framework with selected methods, which can be used with this platform. It proposes a workflow to create a web content mining application and a big data archive, which uses modern technologies like Python, PHP, JavaScript, MySQL and cloud services. It also shows the overview about the architecture, methods and data structures used in the context of web mining, distributed processing and big data analytics.

Use of Automatic Image Classification for Analysis of the Landscape, Case Study of Staré Jesenčany, the Czech Republic

The landscape is changing, mainly due to man. The changes in the landscape are increasingly important, so it is important to monitor these changes, mainly due to the use of resources in the country in the future. The article deals with the use of automatic classification of data from remote sensing to analyse the development of the landscape on the case study in the village Stare Jesencany, the Czech Republic.

Government Enterprise Architecture for Big and Open Linked Data Analytics in a Smart City Ecosystem

Opening up government data introduces a change about how governments operate and how stakeholders use data. At the same time, the large amounts of data need to be collected, processed, transmitted, and published with the aim of enhancing the quality of urban life. Now, these trends are shaping smart cities efforts in the public sector. This paper aimed to clarify the concepts of enterprise architecture, big and open linked data analytics, and smart city and how they are related to each other. A conceptual framework was proposed to analyze the requirements of BOLD analytics in a smart city ecosystem. This was contextualized by decomposing selected smart city architectures that served as a basis for understanding the interrelationships between components. This framework can be used as a guide to help developers and designers in creating government enterprise architectures for BOLD analytics in smart cities.

Usability evaluation of Web-based GIS by means of a model

Spatial information is required by many users to support their decision-making. Application that provide spatial information may be quite complicated so evaluation of their usability is very important. Usability evaluation can help to improve their design or how to choose better application. Many various methods have been proposed. The paper describes a case study which uses combination of usability user testing and NGOMSL model to evaluate usability of chosen Web-based applications by means of calculating a utility. Case study shows that very similar results are obtained by both methods. Average time necessary for usability evaluation is shorter in the case of NGOMSL model.

Statistical analysis of utilization of Landsat data in observation of small inland water bodies

Spatial data are very important for assuring quality of decision-making. Satellite images are used in many applications as a source of spatial data. Precise knowledge of number of usable (suitable) satellite images suitable for analyses is important. Statistics can be used to predict number of suitable images for a particular time period The determination which images are suitable enough for analysis is the first step. The next step is to analyze the results of the determination of image suitability, especially with respect to distribution of images in time. This is the main topic of this paper. Statistical analyses methods are used. The main aim is to predict how many suitable Landsat images can be expected in the case of small inland water bodies observation. A part of Pardubice region in the Czech Republic is used within the case study to demonstrate the proposed procedure. The proposed procedure can be applied to other areas and regions as well.