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Modern Trends in Cartography pp 339–356Cite as

Comparing Paper and Digital Topographic Maps Using Eye Tracking

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography ((LNGC))

Abstract

Maps are not limited anymore to the paper medium, nowadays most of them are produced in a digital format. Since both media are still frequently used, a user study was set-up to investigate whether there is any difference in how map users read and search on maps presented on these two media. All participants had experience in the use of paper and digital maps. Each participant saw a topographic map on 1:10,000 of six different regions. The digital and paper stimuli were presented alternately to the participant and no participant saw the same region twice. On each of the six stimuli, the participants had to locate three labels. During this task, the participants’ eye movements were recorded using an eye tracker that was placed in front of a 50 in. TV screen. Because the eye tracker was not used in its standard set-up, the accuracy and suitability of the recorded data was verified extensively before conducting analyses. The cleaned-up data was analysed statistically and visually using a grid of Areas of Interests (AOIs) depicting the distributions of the fixations counts and durations across the twelve stimuli. Comparing the user’s attentive behaviour on the two media types indicates that significantly more fixations per second were found on the digital maps, but that the distributions were similar.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 (S8), 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Annelies Incoul, Kristien Ooms & Philippe De Maeyer

Authors
  1. Annelies Incoul
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  2. Kristien Ooms
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  3. Philippe De Maeyer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kristien Ooms .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geoinformatics, Palacky´ University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Jan Brus

  2. Department of Geoinformatics, Palacký University in Olomouc, Olomouc, Olomoucky, Czech Republic

    Alena Vondrakova

  3. Department of Geoinformatics, Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Vit Vozenilek

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Incoul, A., Ooms, K., De Maeyer, P. (2015). Comparing Paper and Digital Topographic Maps Using Eye Tracking. In: Brus, J., Vondrakova, A., Vozenilek, V. (eds) Modern Trends in Cartography. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07926-4_26

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