Design and Evaluation of a Visualization Method in a GIS for Complex Electronic Warfare Assessment with Regards to Usability

Sammanfattning: This study presents a way to design a visualization method in a geographic information system for complex electronic warfare assessment. Enhanced usability was in focus and the work covers important factors and challenges when evaluating usability during the development process in a complex domain.   Electronic warfare is an important part of each country’s defence. Assessing Electronic Warfare capabilities in real war zones is normally impossible, making simulations and visualizations important parts of the process. The field of visualization covers visual techniques for presenting large data sets in ways that provide insight to the user. In a visualization, an enhanced usability is achieved with a user-centered interface. Developing a visualization towards usability has its challenges, to develop it in a complex domain with few domain experts as users is even more challenging.   The study used an iterative method with three iterations of implementation and evaluation, applying an approach adapted for experts working in a complex domain. When designing a visualization for a complex domain, the most important factors during the design process are to understand how the users work in the system and to make the visualization simple and over-intuitive.   The last user testing indicated that the users were able to draw conclusions about high-level conceptual goals based on the visual representation as well as to use the GUI to interact with the system. The result of this study is a visualization method for radar propagation with local refractive index, together with a process that can be used to design and evaluate a visualization method towards usability in a complex domain.