Swipe versus multiple view: a comprehensive analysis using eye-tracking to evaluate user interaction with web maps

ABSTRACT

The comparison of multiple maps is a common fundamental process used by geographers to explore the world. The most frequently applied interactive methods for the comparison of maps are multiple view and swipe. Swipe allows the user to interactively drag and overlap two different maps. Multiple view is based on the simultaneous side-by-side display of several maps. The current paper presents an analysis of the use of these two map comparison techniques in an Esri environment using an eye-tracking study which involved 25 participants. The participants completed two different tasks which compared land suitability using two or four maps. Based on an analysis of the recorded data, we compared the effectiveness of these methods through the accuracy of answers, the trial duration, and eye-tracking metrics of the individual compositional elements of the interactive maps. Cognitive processing was investigated through the analysis of dynamic areas of interest. This labor-intensive analysis yielded results which could be visualized using sequence charts. Based on these analyses, we concluded that the participants worked more effectively with multiple views, especially in comparing four maps. Working with swipe in the Esri environment is non-intuitive in comparisons of more than two maps. Many participants instead preferred simple toggling between layers instead of interactive swipe comparisons. However, when swipe was used to compare two maps, the method was more efficient, especially during cognitively demanding tasks.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban planner
• eye-tracking
• swipe
• web map
• multiple view
• map comparison

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at anonymised. The data is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/29wvkzj377.1

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Additional information

Funding

This paper was supported by the project “Application of Geospatial Technologies for Spatial Analysis, Modelling, and Visualization of Spatial Phenomena” [IGA_PrF_2021_020] supported by the Internal Grant Agency of  Palacký University Olomouc) and by the project [No. DG18P02OVV017] of the NAKI II research programme supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.