Accelerating GEOINT Analysis: User Feedback to Improve Geospatial Place-name Services
April 2005
Frank Linton, The MITRE Corporation
ABSTRACT
Collaboration and information sharing across
boundaries is accelerated when analysts in different
organizations refer to the same place by the same
name. Geonames, hosted by NGA, is the official
US and Commonwealth repository of foreign
place-names. Analysts access Geonames thousands
of times per day. A re-engineered Geonames will
be an operationally significant advance in technical
support for GEOINT that provides considerably
better access, for both humans and automated systems,
to higher-quality place-name data. Using the
general interview guide approach we surveyed users
external to NGA to determine how well Geonames
was working for them and what could be
done to improve it. Informants were recommended
by NGA staff embedded in external users' organizations.
Informants have high expectations of Geonames
and suggested extensive changes to Geonames
data, user interface, search tools, and gazetteers.
How well the re-engineered system addresses
these users' needs will determine its success.
Additional Search Keywords
Usability Analysis, Information Sharing and Collaboration, Geospatial Information Systems, Geospatial
Intelligence (GEOINT)
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