GeoWeb Usability: Part One

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a post originally published on Brian Noyle’s blog and is republished here with permission.

Over the past several years, Dave Bouwman and I have spent a great deal of time—both in industry publications and at conferences—talking about the Geospatial Web, or “GeoWeb,” and what it means for GIS professionals and application developers. This article opens a multi-part exploration of usability challenges in GeoWeb design. How many installments will follow is an open question; that will depend largely on how passionate—or irritated—I become as the series unfolds.

There is reason for optimism. It feels as though the industry may finally be moving beyond the habit of dumping full-featured GIS toolkits into a browser and calling it a web application. The GeoWeb, at its heart, is Web 2.0 thinking applied to maps. For users of Esri technology, that means REST services and JavaScript-based APIs. Beyond that ecosystem, it includes platforms such as Google Maps, Google Earth, Microsoft Bing Maps, and a wide range of free and open-source alternatives.

Usability Beats Features—Every Time

Today’s internet users have unlimited choice. If an application is slow, confusing, or demands too much effort, they will simply leave and find another one. That reality places a clear responsibility on architects, developers, and project managers working in web mapping: usability matters more than feature lists.

Most GeoWeb users are not GIS specialists. They are foresters, real estate professionals, police officers, transportation planners, and members of the general public. They do not think in terms of buffers, overlays, or spatial joins—and they shouldn’t have to. Successful GeoWeb applications conceal GIS complexity, guide users through clear, task-driven workflows, and deliver answers with as little friction as possible.

Visual polish and fast performance are important, but they are not enough. Too many web mapping applications still ship with dozens of tools, hundreds of layers, and no clear path for the user. Building effective public-facing or business-focused GeoWeb applications requires a design approach rooted in the user’s mental model, not the developer’s technical capabilities.

“I Need a Full GIS in My Browser”… No, You Don’t

The idea that every web application must replicate desktop GIS functionality is deeply flawed. In practice, very few use cases truly require a full GIS running in a browser—and when teams attempt it, the results are often disappointing. These applications become too complex for non-GIS users, yet too constrained to satisfy professionals.

GIS specialists should be given professional tools—desktop GIS software—delivered through technologies such as Citrix or terminal services when remote access is required. This model allows centralized data and applications while preserving the rich functionality GIS professionals need. Having designed and implemented large systems using this approach, we’ve seen how effective and economical it can be.

Public users and line-of-business staff, on the other hand, need something entirely different: focused applications that solve specific problems quickly. That is where GeoWeb-style applications excel. The next generation of spatial applications is beginning to tap powerful GIS analytics behind the scenes while presenting streamlined interfaces on the surface. Attempting to mimic desktop GIS workflows in a browser usually leads to performance bottlenecks, usability failures, and frustrated users. Purpose-built tools almost always win.

Lesson 1: Hide the Complexity

Domain experts understand their domains. Foresters understand forests. State troopers understand law enforcement. County auditors understand property assessment. None of them need to know what a Thiessen polygon or a spatial intersection is.

When a transportation project manager asks for all structures affected by a roadway project, she is not thinking in GIS operations. What she really wants is a simple answer: which culverts, signs, or mast arms fall near a specific section of road. A GIS professional might recognize this as a multi-step process involving selections, buffers, and intersections across several layers. Expecting the end user to understand—or execute—that workflow is unreasonable.

In well-designed GeoWeb applications, those steps are invisible. The user clicks a single, clearly labeled button, and the system performs the necessary spatial analysis in the background.

Fewer Layers, Better Outcomes

One of the most common mistakes in web mapping is overwhelming users with data. If you believe your audience needs access to every one of the 150 layers in your geodatabase, you are almost certainly mistaken.

A strong GeoWeb application relies on a high-quality base map—often tile-cached with thoughtful cartography—and a small set of operational layers, typically three to five, that directly support the user’s task. Everything else is noise. Reducing layer count not only improves clarity but also dramatically enhances rendering performance, an issue that will be explored later in this series.

Minimal Interfaces, Maximum Clarity

Highly usable applications avoid clutter. Minimal navigation controls, a lack of toolbars and menus, and the absence of complex legends or layer trees are not omissions—they are deliberate design choices.

Consider a roadway management application used by state transportation officials. Their needs are simple: define a road segment and identify affected structures. They do not need to see the GIS machinery that makes this possible. In a well-designed system, once the road is selected, a single action retrieves the relevant structures in a fraction of a second. The user gets the answer and moves on.

Looking Ahead

This article sets the stage for a deeper discussion about usability in GeoWeb applications. Future installments will explore topics such as user feedback and reassurance, preventing negative outcomes, managing real versus perceived performance, and other issues that consistently surface when evaluating web-based GIS systems.

The GeoWeb is not about putting GIS on the internet. It is about delivering spatial insight to people who need answers—not tools.