| dc.description.abstract | User studies are a cornerstone of cartographic research, delivering valuable insights into the design and use of maps, as well as the attitudes and behaviors of map users. The ever-expanding body of cartographic user studies maintains cartography as a forward-facing discipline: emerging technologies and methods are actively pursued and adopted, rather than dismissed. Alongside this growing, diversifying body of research and methods are two persistent, logistical challenges: the cartographic community’s lack of an active database of past and present user studies, and the lack of formal guidelines for the selection of appropriate research methods. Over three articles, this dissertation explores how these challenges affect the critical assessment of user differences, and offers a practical solution to improve the overall quality of future cartographic user studies. The first article reviews participant assessment practices from ten years of refereed user studies: how participants were recruited, which information about the participants was assessed by the study authors, how that information was assessed, and the quality and consistency of the reported study details. The review reveals considerable inconsistency among these practices, either as a result of authors not doing an adequate job in designing their studies or, more likely, reporting on their studies. The second article examines recent developments in open-access data sharing, and uses those principles to guide the development of an online, collaborative, cartographic user study database that I hope cartographers will contribute to, and use, as a tool to guide their own user study designs. The third article examines the concept of best practices, which refers to methods or procedures that have been shown to produce superior results, and introduces a model to allow for their systematic identification. When combined, the database and the best practices identification model should assist cartographers in selecting the most appropriate methods to design a user study. The establishment of a cartographic user study database (CartoBase) and a systematic method for identifying and implementing best practices have the potential to improve the overall quality of cartographic research. | |
