Applying a creative cognition approach to exploratory cartography tool development

Design of visual representation in geographical sciences is in most cases done within the confines of conventions or accepted practices that ensure that the visual designs adhere to, and remain within the realms of the usual and the expected. This is evident in conventional practices in cartography where map design is overwhelmingly constrained by the need for functional maps that target specific predefined user needs by presenting geospatial facts or engaging users in goal-oriented validation of hypotheses. But when a user's map use objective is to engage in an undirected search for geospatial structures and trends as is the case when seeking to develop probing questions and hypothesis about data, then a different design approach is needed. Today, most emergent visual techniques in exploratory cartographic environments focus on providing an enabling visual environment that can generate, manipulate and interact with geospatial structures embedded within the raw data. Whereas these techniques have elaborate interactive and dynamic data manipulation capabilities derived from presumed conceptual and perceptual user goals, they lack an explicit account of their use and effect in knowledge discovery. Besides, since they have goals that are already anticipated, they in essence are determined and therefore cease to function as exploratory techniques. In this paper we use an approach that outlines the underlying creative cognitive processes and structures that give rise to knowledge discovery and insight. It is derived from previous concepts in experimental methods of cognitive science and, is here adopted to answer questions relating to how emergent geospatial features are detected, synthesized and manipulated for the purpose of discovering new structures, relations and meaning therein. The approach is based on the demise that the possibility of creative discovery in geospatial data exploration is greater if the emergent and unprecedented visual structures are uncommon. We are of the opinion that knowledge of the creative cognition structure is a prerequisite for effective design and evaluation of exploratory visualization tools as will be illustrated by a prototype in cartographic animation.