Visualization in maritime navigation: A critical review

Abstract

Innovations in navigation technologies are inducing subtle transformations in the navigator role and navigation processes. Thus, research on maritime navigation, entails the need to further study the designs of all technological artefacts that are or might be used in navigation, and specifically those that involve Human Computer Interaction. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic review about maritime navigation visualization has been carried out. The objective of this review is to fill this gap, by classifying new and innovative ways for the visualization of maritime navigation information. Recent findings on visual attention, offer new strategies and solutions for the representation of navigation information. Operators’ visual attention can be largely improved through mitigation of cluttering effects or by guiding their attention. This review of visual attention also highlights the importance of systematic contextual research to understand all the interactions and processes that happen in the maritime navigation domain.