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Lars Harrie

Lars Harrie

Professor

Lars Harrie

Analytical Estimation of Map Readability

Author

  • Lars Harrie
  • Hanna Stigmar
  • Milan Djordjevic

Summary, in English

Readability is a major issue with all maps. In this study, we evaluated whether we can predict map readability using analytical measures, both single measures and composites of measures. A user test was conducted regarding the perceived readability of a number of test map samples. Evaluations were then performed to determine how well single measures and composites of measures could describe the map readability. The evaluation of single measures showed that the amount of information was most important, followed by the spatial distribution of information. The measures of object complexity and graphical resolution were not useful for explaining the map readability of our test data. The evaluations of composites of measures included three methods: threshold evaluation, multiple linear regression and support vector machine. We found that the use of composites of measures was better for describing map readability than single measures, but we could not identify any major differences in the results of the three composite methods. The results of this study can be used to recommend readability measures for triggering and controlling the map generalization process of online maps.

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

418-446

Publication/Series

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information

Volume

4

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

MDPI AG

Topic

  • Physical Geography

Keywords

  • cartography
  • map readability
  • usability
  • user test
  • supervised learning

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2220-9964