Usability Study on Different Visualization Methods of Crime Maps

Abstract

There are many GIS applications available on the internet showing crime statistics all over the world. The usual visualization methods for these statistics are generally pictograms representing individual crime locations. The visualization of individual crimes raise two problems: they are not able to transmit the real crime situations to the users, because it is not easy to interpret the content of it; the other problem is that they may harm the confidentiality of the victims. Therefore in this study the author tested the applicability and effectiveness of 3 visualization methods: contiguous cartogram, choropleth maps and graduated symbols. The results shows that each of them can be applicable for this purpose but for solving most complex problems contiguous cartogram method must be improved with using other cartographic variables, also further investigations should be done with nonprofessional people with the other two methods.