How Do Display Design and User Characteristics Matter in Animations?: An Empirical Study with Air Traffic Control Displays

We detail an empirical animation study to assess how display design, user spatial ability, and training might influence visuospatial decision-making with animated displays showing aircraft movements. We present empirical results of a visuospatial detection task with moving objects, based on response accuracy and response time, including a descriptive eye-movement analysis. We found significant differences in a visuospatial detection task of moving objects across animation design types and domain expertise levels based on viewers’ visuospatial skill differences. With this empirical approach, we hope to better understand how users explore and extract information from animated displays. Based on these results, we aim to further develop empirically validated animation display design guidelines to increase their efficiency and effectiveness for decision-making with and about moving objects.Nous présentons en détail une expérimentation évaluant des tâches utilisateurs dans un contexte de visualisation dyna-mique représentant des mouvements d’avions sur une interface de contrôle aérien. Nous cherchons à évaluer l’influence des principes d’affichage et du niveau d’expertise sur les aptitudes spatiales des participants à prendre des décisions. L’évaluation est basée sur l’exactitude des réponses données, le temps de réponse, et analyse descriptive des mouvements oculaires (eye tracking). Nous constatons des différences significatives dans la détection visuelle et spatiale d’objets en mouvement, selon le type d’animation et le niveau d’expertise des utilisateurs. À l’aide de cette expérimentation, nous espérons mieux comprendre comment les utilisateurs examinent, interprétent et extraient des connaissances à partir d’affichages dynamiques. À partir de ces résultats, nous souhaitons dégager des principes directeurs qui nous permettrons d’améliorer la conception d’animation, nous cherchons ainsi à accroître l’efficacité dans les prises de décisions des utilisateurs considérant la visualisation d’objets en mouvement.

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