title: Usability Evaluation of the Spatial OLAP Visualization and Analysis Tool (SOVAT).
abstract: Increasingly sophisticated technologies, such as On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) and Geospatial Information Systems (GIS), are being leveraged for conducting community health assessments (CHA). Little is known about the usability of OLAP and GIS interfaces with respect to CHA. We conducted an iterative usability evaluation of the Spatial OLAP Visualization and Analysis Tool (SOVAT), a software application that combines OLAP and GIS. A total of nine graduate students and six community health researchers were asked to think-aloud while completing five CHA questions using SOVAT. The sessions were analyzed after every three participants and changes to the interface were made based on the findings. Measures included elapsed time, answers provided, erroneous actions, and satisfaction. Traditional OLAP interface features were poorly understood by participants and combined OLAP-GIS features needed to be better emphasized. The results suggest that the changes made to the SOVAT interface resulted in increases in both usability and user satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh, 200 Meyran Avenue, VALE M183, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA, scotch@cbmi.pitt.edu.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Scotch
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Information Management, University of Pittsburgh, Forbes Tower - Suite 6020, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA, parmanto@pitt.edu.
authors.forename: Bambang
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Parmanto
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh, 200 Meyran Avenue, VALE M183, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA, monacov@upmc.edu.
authors.forename: Valerie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Monaco
keywords: Community Health Assessment; GIS; OLAP; Public Health Informatics; decision support; human-computer interaction; interface design; think-aloud protocol; usability evaluation