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Abstract. 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.

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Web-based geographic information systems (WebGIS) are increasingly common and accessed by various types of users.However, evaluating their usability is hard, as interactions with the map and provided functionality can be complex.We present a novel approach to remotely assess WebGIS usability and identify design flaws by logging user interface (UI) interactions and applying pattern mining techniques to the resulting datasets. We conducted an online user study with 40 participants in a realistic WebGIS scenario to validate the approach. The results show that applying this concept can provide insights into user strategies and can reveal usability issues, which can help to improve UIs for WebGIS. Designers can use the methods presented here to assess the usability of their WebGIS rapidly and at scale without carrying out expensive and lengthy in-person user studies. This article also contributes to a better understanding of the challenges and limitations of remotely conducted usability evaluations for WebGIS.

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