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Cartographic Design
Published in Terry A. Slocum, Robert B. McMaster, Fritz C. Kessler, Hugh H. Howard, Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization, 2022
Terry A. Slocum, Robert B. McMaster, Fritz C. Kessler, Hugh H. Howard
Visual hierarchy is implemented by applying contrast to map features, as described in Section 13.3.3. The visual weight of map features refers to the relative amount of attention they attract and can be manipulated to emphasize or deemphasize features. The map in Figure 13.6A reflects an inverted (incorrect) visual hierarchy based on the general intellectual hierarchy listed earlier. Thematic symbols (i.e., symbols representing elementary, junior high, and high schools) have been deemphasized in favor of base information such as roads, universities, and the river. More important map elements such as the title and legend have also been deemphasized, whereas less important map elements such as the bar scale and data source have been given far too much visual weight. Try looking at this map while squinting (the “squint test”) and identify the map features that stand out. The bar scale, data source, universities, river, and roads should certainly not be the most noticeable features on a map that focuses on public schools. The map in Figure 13.6B has a visual hierarchy that appropriately reflects the intellectual hierarchy listed earlier. Thematic symbols are visually dominant, as are the title and legend; they are dominant because of their greater visual weight, achieved through the manipulation of contrast (described next). Base information (universities, river, roads, etc.) is subdued, as are the data source and bar scale. An effective visual hierarchy results in a map that clearly reflects the relative importance of symbols and map elements. A map with an appropriate visual hierarchy is easier to interpret and is also more attractive.
Older adults’ use of mobile device: usability challenges while navigating various interfaces
Published in Behaviour & Information Technology, 2020
After reviewing the guidelines and principles proposed by iOS and Android platforms (Apple Inc 2017a; Google Inc 2017a) and analysing various navigation patterns used for the current mobile applications (Apple Inc 2017b; Google Inc 2017b), we summarised six of the most widely used mobile navigation patterns to conduct usability testing and in-depth interviews among older adults, namely tab menu, side drawer, springboard, lists, gallery and grids, and cards. Based on the amount of content attached to each menu item, these patterns can be categorised into two groups of menu-oriented and content-oriented design patterns (Neil 2014; Tidwell 2010). For each pattern, two representative examples are shown in Figures 1 and 2. Menu-oriented design patterns include simple menu structures such as tab menu, side drawer, and springboard (Figure 1). Tab menus are mainly used as persistent navigation for flat hierarchies. These menus can immediately show three to five top-level destinations and allow users to switch between them. Side drawers are pop-up menus that can only be revealed by tapping. Normally, the side drawer is used for more than five categories with two or more levels of hierarchy. The springboard generally works as a launch point into different applications or functions and provides a number of categories with more than two levels of hierarchy. In general, these menus do not contain a great deal of content and act more like hyper-buttons or links, often resulting in dispersed visual exploration. When navigation patterns involve more contents, such as explanatory information and graphic elements, a repeated pattern of lists or cells arrayed in a vertical or horizontal layout, such as grids or a gallery, may work better. Finally, card patterns have recently emerged as an elegant way to display additional content for browsing, using swiping, flipping, and stacking gestures. They can easily create a visual hierarchy, generally facilitating attention along with a linear means of exploration. These are categorised into content-oriented design patterns (Figure 2).
Eye-tracking study of the celebrity effect on microblogging browsing: an example from Sina microblog
Published in Behaviour & Information Technology, 2021
Huishan Pang, Ying Ge, Jibo He, Lingcong Zhang
As with any study, there were certain limitations. Fist the research participants of this paper were college students. Although they are active in various social platforms and have a clear attitude toward celebrities’ microblogging, to transform their attention into purchasing power, we need to consider the economic level of this group and other characteristics. Therefore, if we want to use celebrity effect to improve economic efficiency in the future, we should expand the selection of participants to different classes. Second, although this study has tried to maintain consistency among microblogging page layouts, the text and image of microblogging pages are ever changing. The principle of visual hierarchy (Faraday 2000) shows that some web page features are perceived in a certain order and the size of images and the location of elements are important components of visual hierarchy. These factors cannot be excluded from the impact of microblogging pages, and future research should try to avoid the interference of irrelevant variables. Third the emergence of social media has greatly changed users’ cognitive habits and processing methods of information. As a kind of media, microblogging is an important channel for netizens to obtain information. Sina Microblog is the most popular microblogging platform in China, and it is used as an example here to understand microblogging information processing differences among different types of users in the current social media context. The results show that users who browse microblogging often attach more importance to the identity of information publisher. A research study from China (Li 2017) shows that regardless of the types of posts that people comment on, they give priority to information sources (microblogging disseminators). Two studies fully demonstrated that China's microblogging platform has Chinese culture's unique characteristics, with users attaching great importance to the identity of information publisher, and ‘who you are’ is more important than ‘what you say’ in terms of priority and impact on users. Chinese netizens’ cognitive processing and judgment of media information also reflects their emphasis on the identity and authority of information sources. For other social platforms, it is not clear whether the same conclusion can be reached. Because of the political form of emphasising centralisation and authority in Chinese cultural tradition, which is quite different from the tradition of revering individual supremacy in the West (Sun and He 2015), the same study manipulation like what we reported in this paper may obtain different results in the context of Western culture. Therefore, the future direction might be to investigate differences in the information processing methods of microblogging among participants of different classes and even to conduct cross-cultural research.