News — 19 July, 2022

OpenAerialMapv2 - Design Testing Phase Results

It's time to share the progress of the OpenAerialMap redesign project again. In previous reports, you could read about the Project Kick-Off and the Design Phase. In June, the Kontur team involved users in the testing phase of the updated design of OAM.

Testing phase

Testing is the third phase of the OpenAerialMap v2 project. During this phase, Kontur team conducted several user testings of Figma prototypes. While users interacted with different scenarios, the team checked their design hypothesis and gathered feedback and insights. Kontur conducted five user testing sessions with representatives from different stakeholder groups:

1. Satellite / Aerial imagery provider
2. Drone Imagery provider / Imagery user
3. Imagery user / OSM Community member
4. Drone Imagery provider / Imagery user / OSM Community member
5. Drone Imagery provider / Imagery user / HOT Community member

While testing, participants performed several tasks depending on their experience working with the current version of the OpenAerialMap platform.

After the Design phase, Kontur team already had several recommendations considered in the prototypes:

• The left panel and map should be intuitively interconnected; we should show shapes of images on the map itself while choosing the exact cluster; show shapes of other images on the map while seeing only one image card on the left panel;
• The download button should be seen and understandable for the users;
• The filter list should be expanded and improved: while uploading imagery, a contributor fills in a lot of description fields that aren’t used for filtering functions right now; a user should see all available filters and have the ability to change and/or erase them;
• The log-in improvements: users need the ability to log in with their OSM account; users should understand why they need to log in;
• The uploading process status: users should visually understand how the uploading process is going and be able to navigate during it;
• User account settings administration: some users don’t mind getting messages with requests to share or shoot more images in their area. Being able to add links to contact them will enable this possibility.

Kontur team also successfully tested some previously gathered assumptions:

• Clustering should be used since it is convenient for users to navigate through the map. Images should be visible on the map; on smaller zooms, they should be gathered in clusters;
• The upload form should be easier to fill. We need to give some clarifications for fields that are not so obvious while filling them, decrease the number of fields to fill in, add prefilling function, and add drag & drop space for images;
• Provide an opportunity to get the link of the present map extent (several imagery datasets as TMS/WMTS link);
• Users should be able to focus to AOI in three ways: via geocoder, drawn or loaded polygon. This enables data search inside selected boundaries.
• Users find using the timeline comfortable, especially with applied time filters. It can be added to make the search for images by date more interactive.

The two images below show an example of comparing the present and new versions of OAM interfaces. In this case, we applied clusterization as an alternative for the squared grid system.

Present OAM version

OAM new version prototype

Stay tuned for the next report with the results of the last Guidance phase of the OpenAerialMap v2 Design project.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at info@openaerialmap.org or in the #OpenAerialMap of HOT Slack.