Mining Map Interaction Semantics in web-based Geographic Information Systems (WebGIS) for Usability Analysis

Due to the increased availability of geospatial data, web-based geographic information systems (WebGIS) have become more popular in recent years. However, the usability of these systems poses new challenges as user interactions are strongly affected by the map and are thus different from interactions with traditional user interface elements. In this paper, we propose a method for evaluating the usability of web-based geographic information systems by analyzing user intentions through map interaction patterns. We use a pattern mining algorithm to extract frequent interaction sequences from user sessions and label these with their interaction semantics that represent the users’ immediate intentions. To evaluate our approach, we conducted a user study with 60 participants in a WebGIS scenario and identified varying user strategies for a selection task based on two different geovisualizations. Our results indicate that the chosen approach can uncover the underlying intentions of users’ interaction patterns and facilitate insights into the usability of WebGIS.

: Applying QGIS software to manage database of street and house number in Binh Tho ward, Thu Duc district, Ho Chi Minh City

Today, the rapid development of urban areas has led to the explosion of data volumes in land use change. The present development of infrastructure and housing has caused many difficulties in urban management, especially information of street name and house number. Therefore, the management and provision of information of street name and house number in a scientific and effective way is an urgent demand for all agencies, organizations and individuals in our society. Geographic information system (GIS) is developing increasingly and continuously and applied in many fields; QGIS is a new open source code software with many features, considered as one of the most powerful tools in designing and analysizing spatial database. Applying this software to manage database of name street and housing number will be better in managing construction and infrastructure development in urban areas which are suitable with the strategy of establishing smart city and e-government in our city and nation. The results of this study showed that the present and oriental organization of address built successfully a database of streets name, houses number and used Python programming language in developing the tool to manage and look up the information with functions such as look up, update and map interaction of Binh Tho ward, Thu Duc district, Ho Chi Minh City. The test results indicate that this tool is very useful in managing and searching information on street name, house number related to information on land parcels' information on cadastral base.