GIS-Based Marketing Decisions: Effects of AlternativeVisualizations on Decision Quality

Geographical Information Systems (GISs) are often used to assist marketing planners inidentifying suitable retail locations, regionally distributing advertising campaigns, or targetingdirect marketing activities. GIS–thematic maps facilitate the visual assessment of mapregions.A broad set of alternative symbolizations such as circles, bars or shading can be usedto visually represent quantitative geospatial data on such maps. However, there is littleknowledge on which kind of symbolization is the most adequate in which problem situation.In a large-scale experimental study, the authors show that the type of symbolization stronglyinfluences decision performance.[...]