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Articles

Number 20 (2018)

Competitive analysis of current Ocean Web-Mapping Applications

Submitted
February 12, 2019
Published
2018-11-30

Abstract

A competitive analysis study is a usability engineering method administered to critically analyze and compare a set of similar applications according to their relative merits. This paper presents a competitive analysis study of current ocean web-mapping applications that deliver ocean related data to the scientific community. The analysis is part of a User-Centered Design (UCD) approach that was applied to develop the Ocean Web-Mapping Application of the Ocean Mapping Group (OMG) at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), a web mapping application to deliver ocean mapping data to ocean modellers. A total of twenty-four existing applications were critically analyzed and compared across two broad themes in cartography: (1) representation and (2) interaction; adding topics to consider the potential needs of ocean modellers. The results helped to establish trends and gaps and to discover new opportunities for ocean web-mapping development. Using the conclusions drawn from this study, an online survey was prepared to be conducted by ocean modellers and continue the UCD methodology of the Ocean Web-Mapping Application.