Wireframing for interactive & web-based geographic visualization: designing the NOAA Lake Level Viewer

In this article, we explore the potential of wireframe design and evaluation for interactive and web-based mapping through a case study on water level visualization. Specifically, our research informed design and development of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Lake Level Viewer (http://coast.noaa.gov/llv/), an interactive and web-based geovisualization application for the Great Lakes region of North America. As part of our overall user-centered design process, we created two sets of wireframes to evaluate two aspects of the user experience: high-fidelity wireframes to illustrate the proposed representation solution using real data and low-fidelity wireframes to provide a rough sketch of the proposed interaction solution. Eighteen target users completed cognitive walkthroughs of the wireframes, with the sessions audio-recorded for subsequent transcription and qualitative data analysis. The wireframe evaluations led to a series of revisions to the functional scope and visual design of the Lake Level Viewer. The process also generated recommendations for designing water level visualizations supporting adaptive management in response to climate change as well as for leveraging wireframes in support of large-scale mapping and GIS projects.