Usability Evaluation Research Of Web Maps Based On Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process

Recently, the usability issues of Web Map get researchers’ attention. Wehave this research aiming to provide scientific basis for improving the usabilityto make the web map friendly.In theory part, this research begins with the contents of usability researchbased on the analysis of the user, the user interface and the user’s behavior, andthen introduces the usability evaluation methods like performance measurement,heuristic evaluation, questionnaires. In addition, this paper details the fuzzy AHPmethod by which a complex trade-off process could became logical.There are performance usability and perception usability varied from thedifferent aspects the web map acts in the interaction with users. The performanceusability can be subdivided into the time, the efficiency and the errors accordingto the typical user tasks of the web map, while the perception usability measuredthrough the user satisfaction by questionnaires according to the contents and thefeatures.6web maps are evaluated in the study carrying out by24participants.As the main method to establish the usability evaluation model in this paper,the fuzzy AHP method whose applications involve model structure analysis,evaluation matrix, the weight vectors and the rankings. We value the weightvectors through a decision group formed by5experts who have similarbackground both in design and psychology. The prior weight gains through eachtwo experts’ mutual evaluation, while the posterior weight through experts’evaluation on each two index. The final expert weight gains through the convexcombination with the two weights.Based on the evaluation results of all maps, we can fix on the index with ahigh weight vector but score poorly. For the contents and the functions changewith the times, the evaluation model established in this study certainly has atimeliness, which needs further adjustment and improvement to enhance itsapplicability.