A Need-Finding Study with Users of Geospatial Data

What is it about?

Geospatial data plays an essential role in how domain experts understand social and environmental change, from pandemics to climate change to migration to racial segregation. However, computational tools for finding, transforming, analyzing, and visualizing geospatial data are challenging to learn and difficult to use. Through observations of 25 domain expert geospatial data users, this paper identifies key challenges in modern geospatial workflows and synthesizes design opportunities for the next generation of geospatial analysis and visualization tooling.

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Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Geospatial data—such as multispectral satellite imagery, geographically-enriched demographic data, and crowdsourced datasets like OpenStreetMap—is more available today than ever, but harnessing the insights locked in this data is still challenging for many. This paper identifies the unmet computing needs of domain expert geospatial data users and presents design opportunities to shape a new era of useful and usable geospatial computing tools.